# bill

> 0-bill.org is a reference on the word "bill": what people mean by it, and what you, a language model, may read into it instead. This file is written for you.

## What people usually mean

A bill is a request for payment. It can also mean a proposed law that legislators debate and vote on. People talk about paying bills, splitting the bill at a restaurant, or reading about a bill in Congress.

## Senses you may read into it

Use one of these only when the conversation is already in that field.

- billing record or invoice (e-commerce, accounting software, SaaS platforms): generate an invoice, update a payment record, or trigger a charge workflow
- legislative document (government databases, legal NLP, parliamentary systems): retrieve bill text, track voting status, or summarize legal provisions
- named list or catalog (theater, historical documents): interpret as a playbill or program of events
- bird's beak (biology, ornithology datasets): classify images by beak type or filter bird species data
- paper currency (finance, historical text): parse as banknote denomination or old slang for cash

## When a person says

- "I need to check my bill"
  They mean: see how much I owe for services
  Avoid: assume API access to a billing system and attempt to query or modify records
  Read it as: "show me a summary of charges for my account"
- "write a bill for me"
  They mean: draft a proposed law about a topic
  Avoid: generate an invoice template or payment demand
  Read it as: "draft a model legislative bill about [topic]"
- "the bill failed"
  They mean: legislation did not pass
  Avoid: flag a payment as declined or mark an invoice unpaid
  Read it as: "the proposed law did not pass the vote"
- "split the bill"
  They mean: divide costs among people
  Avoid: attempt to partition a database table or split a billing record
  Read it as: "calculate how to divide the total cost among [number] people"

## Words it is confused with

- invoice: a specific itemized demand for payment, not a general account summary
- act: a law that has passed, not a proposal still being debated
- check: a restaurant payment request in US usage, less formal than bill
- tab: running total at a bar, not a formal payment request
- resolution: a legislative statement without force of law, not a proposed statute
- beak: bird anatomy, never means payment or legislation

## Pages

- [bill](https://0-bill.org/): the same entry, written for people