# bill (0-bill.org)

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.

## What a model may hear
- 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- named list or catalog (theater, historical documents): interpret as a playbill or program of events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

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

## Tips
- specify 'invoice' or 'payment' for money matters, 'legislation' or 'proposed law' for government matters
- add context like 'restaurant bill' or 'utility bill' to narrow the domain
- say 'draft' rather than 'write' if you want a legislative document
- use 'account charges' or 'statement' to avoid billing-system assumptions
- mention jurisdiction like 'US Congress bill' or 'UK Parliament bill' for legal accuracy

## Often 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