  We perform a study of lepton-pair production in association with bottom
quarks at the LHC based on the predictions obtained at next-to-leading order in
QCD, both at fixed order and matched with a QCD parton shower. We consider a
comprehensive set of observables and estimate the associated theoretical
uncertainties by studying the dependence on the perturbative QCD scales
(renormalisation, factorisation and shower) and by comparing different
parton-shower models (Pythia8 and Herwig++) and matching schemes
(MadGraph5_aMC@NLO and POWHEG). Based on these results, we propose a simple
procedure to include bottom-quark effects in neutral-current Drell-Yan
production, going beyond the standard massless approximation. Focusing on the
inclusive lepton-pair transverse-momentum distribution $p_{\bot}^{l^+l^-}$, we
quantify the impact of such effects on the tuning of the simulation of
charged-current Drell-Yan observables and the $W$-boson mass determination.
