EXCLUSIVE — Automating the simple process of consumer payments took years, and automating the complexities of business-to-business payments (including getting rid of the paper check) could take decades.

With a new B2B platform for electronic invoicing and payments, JPMorgan Chase and Bill.com are hoping to give that innovation a jump start.

“The fact is that consumer payments are much simpler, and therefore their automation and shift to digital came first,” René Lacerte, CEO and founder of Bill.com, told Bank Innovation. “With business payments you are dealing with a higher volume of invoices and more complexity, which requires more innovation.”

Bill.com is hoping its pilot platform with JPMorgan Chase, announced last week, will provide a proving ground for that innovation.  Bill.com’s platform currently has about 2.5 million business members using its platform for payments, according to the company.

“We have many clients that receive bills in paper form, then they have to digitize it, send it off to different approvers—sometimes there are dozens of people just manning the phones fielding calls from suppliers to say, ‘Yes, we received your invoice,’” Stephen Markwell, head of treasury services product strategy for commercial banking at JPMorgan Chase, told Bank Innovation. “This collaboration moves beyond that paper-based system, helps our clients to more easily connect with their suppliers.”

The platform, which will allow businesses to send and receive electronic payments (and invoices, which is a little trickier), will be piloted early next year with a small group of clients for better feedback and optimization before its general rollout, according to JPMorgan Chase.

This will make a nice change from the paper-based ecosystem that, until recently, businesses have been slow to give up: in 2013, 50% of B2B payments within the U.S. were via check. While that number is declining, businesses still write about 8 billion checks per year, according to Markwell, and about 18 billion checks total were written in the U.S. within the past year.

Having an electronic system of payment for these businesses could drastically reduce the dependence on checks. Unlike consumer payments, the companies will be ironing out their software in the “walled garden” ecosystem business payments typically operate within, a factor that has traditionally hamstrung innovation in this area, according to Markwell.

“The issue of automating business payments has been around for quite a long time, and prior closed looped solutions have had varying levels of success.  A critical component of our collaboration with Bill.com is that the open looped network can grow organically,” Markwell said.