Check out these 23 invoicing applications that may just help you out!

Click here for the apps

OB10 (www.ob10.com), the leading global e-Invoicing network, today announced that it is launching an environmental program that recognizes its corporate and supplier customers who are taking significant steps to positively impact the environment by eliminating paper from their back-office accounts payable processes.

The initiative, titled the OB10 Green Program, is a continuation of OB10’s strong foundation of facilitating good environmental stewardship among its global customers and their suppliers. Paper-based invoicing is still a regular practice among many companies, whether they are sending and receiving invoices through the mail, implementing OCR or e-mailing an invoice that is printed at the recipient’s end.

By transitioning to OB10’s electronic invoicing network, companies have saved over 60 millions of sheets of paper as well as additional resources that go into the manufacturing and distribution of paper such as trees, oil, electricity and water. OB10 is recognizing a select number of customers and suppliers that have demonstrated a commitment to sustainability and e-Invoicing by awarding them the OB10 Green Award.

“OB10’s e-invoicing network automates and streamlines back-office accounts payable procedures in a manner that is environmentally prudent and makes good financial sense,” said Jamie Gunn, Chief Executive Officer for OB10. “In the course of our relationships, OB10 customers and suppliers have demonstrated an enthusiastic commitment to positively impacting our environment. We will continue to work with our customers and suppliers around the globe in a way that extends their sustainability programs while improving their bottom lines.”

For Accounts Payable OB10 Green Award winner and OB10 customer Mohawk Industries, a leading supplier of flooring for both residential and commercial applications, selecting OB10 as its e-Invoicing solution has complemented its sustainability platform that focuses on the five “Rs” – reduce, recover, reuse, renew, and recycle.

“Within five months of selecting OB10 as our e-Invoicing solution provider, more than 75 percent of our initial suppliers had enrolled in the OB10 Network, enabling our company to eliminate more than 400,000 paper invoices a year,” said Tracy Bryant, Accounts Payable Manager at Mohawk Industries. “The recognition of Mohawk’s sustainability efforts by Newsweek, Wal-Mart and the US General Services Administration is a testament to the strategic position that sustainability is given within our organization.”

As an OB10 customer, supplier to Mohawk and Accounts Receivable OB10 Green Award winner, Congoleum is another organization enhancing its green initiatives by leveraging the OB10 Network. To date, the New Jersey-based manufacturer of resilient sheet and tile flooring for both residential and commercial uses has saved more than 375,000 sheets, or three tons, of paper since joining the OB10 Network.

Congoleum isn’t the only supplier on the OB10 Network committed to sustainability. OfficeMax, a leader in business-to-business office products solutions and recipient of the Accounts Receivable Award, has saved over 300,000 sheets of paper, or the equivalent 40 trees, since joining OB10.

“We look for partners, like OB10, who deliver a value proposition that goes above and beyond the norm and helps us extend our environmental policy,” said William Bonner, Senior Director, External Relations at OfficeMax. “We believe there is more that we can achieve, so we always invite our associates, customers, shareholders and neighbors to join us in our effort to minimize adverse environmental impacts.”

In addition to the above, HP, an OB10 customer since 2003, also received the Accounts Payable OB10 Green Award. The recognition of HP illustrates the company’s commitment to electronic invoicing as a component of its overall environmental sustainability initiative.

OB10 will continue to recognize those organizations transacting on its network that are committed to sustainability. “As more organizations and their suppliers join the global OB10 e-Invoicing network, we’ll have a greater opportunity through the OB10 Green Program and accompanying award to hasten the permanent transition from paper to electronic invoicing,” said Jamie Gunn. “In addition, we offer a substantive way for our customers to decrease energy consumption, protect more of our green spaces, and facilitate good corporate citizenship and environmental sustainability.”

For more information about the OB10 Green Program, visit http://ob10.com/Country/US/OB10_Green_Program

This analysis of E-Invoicing & E-Billing provides you with the most up to date and comprehensive analysis of the top 67 companies operating the market.

There’s a catch though, you’d have to invest GBP 350,- to :
1) benchmark their business’s financial performance,
2) identify under performing companies for acquisition
3) seek out successful companies to partner or do business with
4) understand the key movers and shakers in today’s market.

The report incorporates:

• a 5 year performance appraisal using our model
• an instant graphical and written analysis that tells you everything you need to know about that company and its strengths and weaknesses
• an individual valuation of detailing what it is currently worth
• an Acquisition Rating´ on outlining its attractiveness as a company to acquire,
• a ´future year´ outlining the steps needed to improve its health and increase its value.

In addition, the report also includes a 100 page overview of the latest developments in the market including: a 10 year trend analysis detailing changes in the market, a list of exceptional performers in over 15 categories and a breakdown of the industry’s KPI’s from sales growth to profitability, etc.

Click HERE for report details.

Source: companiesandmarkets.com

Most countries apply a value-added-tax (VAT) or goods and service tax (GST) to the value that is added to goods and services at each step of the economic chain, and use the invoice as the key document for calculating and auditing this tax.
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However, each country applies its own regulatory requirements for electronic invoices which significantly increases the complexity of compliance for multi-national companies, and introduces costs and risks to your business.

The Sterling e-Invoicing Savings Calculator provides estimates of savings you could achieve through the automation of manual invoice processing, archiving and auditing. The calculations are based on data derived from a study commissioned by Sterling Commerce and completed in 2010 by Forrester Consulting on its behalf with companies across multiple industries and geographies.

Try the Calculator at:
www.sterlingeinvoicingsavings.com

Basware, the global leader in purchase-to-pay solutions, today announced the addition of supplier functionality to its Basware Connectivity services.  Basware Connectivity for Suppliers enables Accounts Receivable departments to deliver all sales invoices electronically to their customers, irrespective of the invoice format required by the customer organization.
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With Basware, Accounts Receivable departments can achieve a 100% e-invoicing capability from day one. E-invoicing increases invoice accuracy, as well as ensuring that invoices are sent on time and have been received.  This results in increased visibility over the entire process, facilitating cash flow forecasting as well as increased customer satisfaction as customers are able to process invoices electronically.

Basware Connectivity for Suppliers ensures timely delivery of sales invoices through the Basware Business Transactions service. Accounts Receivable can send all their sales invoices to all customers through one single service, which generates instant time and cost savings in reduced postal charges.  Basware routes the invoices to the appropriate delivery channel according to customer capabilities. To ensure delivery in the correct format for all customers, Basware provides Accounts Receivable with an outsourced printing service and the ability to deliver invoices by email to customers not yet able to receive e-invoices directly to their invoice processing solution. Once invoices have been delivered, they are archived to guarantee integrity, enabling future compliance where there are legal requirements for storing e-invoices.

According to independent research company Billentis, organizations can save as much as 57% per invoice in costs by turning their sales invoices electronic.  Toshiba TEC Germany, a recent Basware Connectivity for Suppliers customer, found in an internal study that by the time a paper invoice was printed, enveloped, stamped and sent to the post office for delivery, the total cost per invoice averaged € 1.61. A comparable electronic invoice costs a mere € 0.40. According to recent calculations, Toshiba is experiencing 75% savings in invoicing costs.

“Electronic payment and purchasing has clear business benefits. The more you get connected with your customers, the more likely it is that they will stay with you,” says Klaus Dieter Leifgen, IT manager at Toshiba TEC Germany Imaging Systems GmbH.

“An increasing number of Accounts Receivable departments are facing demand from their customers to provide e-invoices. We are already seeing this become a key criterion in vendor selection processes as they seek to improve collaboration across their supply chains,” said Esa Tihilä, SVP, Basware. “With these new services, Basware Connectivity allows Accounts Receivable teams to switch to e-invoicing instantaneously, without having to manage paper processes concurrently to cater for customers who are in the early development phases of their e-invoicing strategy. This allows suppliers to gain competitive advantage over their competitors while catering to the billing needs of existing customers.”

To learn more about these new services, please visit http://e-invoicing-for-suppliers.basware.com.

Sterling Commerce, an AT&T Inc (NYSE:T) company, today announced the results of a global survey that examines how companies manage the complexity of cross-border invoicing.
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The research highlights the cost savings to be gained by automating country-specific mandates for cross-border invoicing around processing, archiving and auditing; notably through the elimination of error-prone manual processing and the reduction of associated penalties and fines.
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The survey found that, on average:

• Each paper invoice error costs companies $53.50 to rectify.
• Accounts payable (AP) departments receive 35 percent of invoices in paper form.
• Only a quarter (25 percent) of invoices are sent via a fully-automated electronic method.

“The survey demonstrates the benefits of full electronic invoicing,” said Ken Ramoutar, vice president, Product and Industry Marketing, at Sterling Commerce.  “However, going from a paper invoice to an electronic invoice is only half the battle; the true success of e-invoicing depends on fully understanding the regulatory criteria of processing, automating, archiving and auditing, which varies geographically.  This is especially relevant to U.S. companies doing business in countries that impose a value-added tax (VAT).

Fines can be severe if companies attempt to claim back VAT in breach of regulation.  From our experience with customers, however, awareness of the need to prepare for e-invoicing regulation is lower in the U.S. than elsewhere.”
Approximately half (49 percent) of companies experienced two audits or more over the previous three years.   Of the companies surveyed that had experienced VAT audits:

• More than one in three (34 percent) incurred fines from tax authorities.
• Nearly one quarter (24 percent) incurred fines for not being compliant with customer mandates.

The survey finds that by moving from manual, paper-based invoice processes to fully automated, electronic invoice processing, businesses can achieve:

• Cost savings of 90 percent on the AP side, as manually-processed invoices cost, on average, $30 per invoice to process, while fully-automated invoices average only $3.50 per invoice to process.
• Cost savings of 44 percent in the accounts receivable (AR) departments, where manually-processed invoices cost, on average, $4 per invoice and fully-automated invoices $2.25 per invoice to process.
• Error reduction of 37 percent on all types of invoices.
• Storage costs savings – With more than 40 percent of companies retaining archives for up to 10 years, these will be significant.
  • Savings amount to 67 percent on AP and 32 percent on AR invoices, with fully electronic invoices of all kinds costing on average $1.30 to store, while paper AP invoices cost $3.90 and paper AR invoices $1.90 each to store.

The survey, commissioned by Sterling Commerce and conducted by Forrester Consulting in December 2009, was undertaken across accounts payable, accounts receivable and tax management functions in enterprises with annual revenue ranging from $250 million to $5 billion in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Netherlands, Sweden, Spain and Italy.  It looked at enterprises in the manufacturing, retail, communications/media and distributions/logistics industries.  The research data was used to create an e-Invoicing savings calculator, which is available at: www.sterlingeinvoicingsavings.com.
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“Companies trading internationally must be alert to their financial and regulatory responsibilities, or risk fines and sanctions,” said Ramoutar. “Companies are usually aware of VAT regulations in their own country, but often lack the depth of knowledge required for compliant cross-border invoicing.  In addition to the cost of fines, unsuccessful audits also may affect ‘vendor rating,’ making a further case for e-invoicing. Simply creating an electronic document such as a PDF invoice is not sufficient to achieving compliant e-invoicing and avoiding fines.”

About Sterling Commerce
Sterling Commerce, an AT&T Inc (NYSE:T) company, helps companies optimize and transform their Business Collaboration Network to accelerate revenues and reduce costs.  Sterling Commerce provides more than 18,000 customers worldwide with applications and integration solutions to connect, communicate and collaborate inside and outside their enterprise.  More information can be found at www.sterlingcommerce.com.

This item was originally posted on: http://fairit.wordpress.com/2010/04/26/ebill/ and found via: http://twitter.com/garintoren

Of course, the second problem has nothing to do with IT but goes to show, that you simply cannot implement technology without taking into consideration the high level process, in this case the whole billing process.

What was the result of this experience? I simply told the service provider to send me a paper bill in the future.

As part of a CFO Research Series, PROACTIS set out to determine the impact of invoice automation on the financial performance of an organisation by surveying more than 100 European medium-sized enterprises.

It found that Finance departments are being compromised by high-touch invoice processes and sub-standard performance in Accounts Payable, due to errors and mistakes in manual, paper-based invoice processing.

Among the key findings:

Accounts Payable spends in excess of 70 % of their time trying to reconcile invoices.

41 % of organisations report invoicing delays as a common source of cash flow problems.

32 % estimated their company has at least £10,000 a month delayed due to invoicing errors.

43 % reported less than 10 percent of invoices are handled using automated exception workflow.

62 % highlight inaccuracies of data for Accounts Payable as well as ERP systems.

Over 30 % of respondents do not know the cost and cycle time for processing an invoice; or even the precise invoice volume.

To register for your complimentary copy of the research, go to the Proactis website

E-invoicing enables businesses to eliminate the paper, printing and postage costs associated with traditional billing, and also removes manua points of failure.

Ryan Harvey, finance manager at Tesco’s service centre in Bangalore said that Tesco’s existing invoicing process has too many points of failure The company has switched to an e-invoicing service provided by OB10.

“This is because as all invoices are currently scanned from the UK and keyed in Bangalore and so the data integrity and control that OB10 brings is crucial.”

“We are also a growing international business and a key requirement was for a solution that we could scale across our Group in the future without significant growth to the Accounts Payable team; OB10 meets this requirement.”

E-invoicing basics
E-invoicing is an alternative to Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) as a method of dealing with supply payments electronically.

E-invoicing uses the internet to connect businesses with their suppliers and automates the processing of invoices in accounting systems. It speeds up payment times, improves the information in ERP systems, reduces the human resources required and eradicates inputting errors. It also cuts postage costs and reduces waste paper.

The technology is moving to the mainstream as the European Commission pushes it as part of its drive to cut costs in supply chains. The Corporate Action on Standards project, set up by the European Payments Council, said that e-invoicing allows companies to cut the average EUR30 cost of processing a paper invoice by 80%.

In 2007 logistics company DHL rolled out e-invoicing across Europe, and expects to save millions of pounds by reducing billing costs by at least 15% across the region.

www.ob10.com

In total, the measures proposed by the Commission and under preparation would enable businesses to save around € 40.4 bn from € 123.8 bn on red-tape stemming from 72 EU texts and the measures that transpose and implement them in the Member States. Reduction measures put in place by the Commission or proposed by the Commission and already adopted could bring a reduction of EUR 7.6 billion.

Measures proposed by the Commission and pending adoption by the European Parliament and the Council would add EUR 30.7 billion to that amount. Preparatory work on further reduction could lead to the presentation of additional measures bringing further reduction of at least EUR 2.1 billion. Now it is in the hands of the co legislators to ensure that businesses can feel the difference on the ground.

European Commission President José Manuel Barroso said: “The Commission is fully on track to deliver on its goals to reduce red tape for businesses.   B usinesses are already set to save €7.6 billion a year. That will become about €40 billion if Member States and the European Parliament back our proposals in full. But better regulation is a job that never ends. It is not just about changing bad rules, but making good rules work better, using new technologies and new innovation. Further streamlining European and national regulation – without compromising on protecting the public – will be a key to the next Commission’s drive to promote sustainable economic recovery.”

Vice-President Günter Verheugen, Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry, said: “Today’s package is the result of policy commitment and hard work to abolish unnecessary bureaucracy. The Commission has done everything in its power to achieve the 25% target by 2012. I invite the European Parliament and Member States to adopt all of our remaining proposals to make them fully effective for the European economy as soon as possible. It does not cost anything but would mean a boost of around 30.7 bn € for our enterprises, and especially for Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs).”

The EU administrative burden reduction programme will deliver an overall reduction of 40.4 bn € (33% of the estimated burden). It would come into effect, if all Commission proposals find the agreement of the Council and the Parliament. This is particularly the case for two major proposals, made at the beginning of this year, one in the field of VAT aimed at facilitating e-invoicing (worth € 18 bn), the other in the field of company law, exempting micro-entities from accounting obligations (worth € 7 bn).

The baseline measurement exercise has been completed and confirmed the choice made by the Commission to concentrate on the selected priority areas. This measurement exercise has also confirmed the vulnerability of SMEs to administrative burdens. Stakeholders’ involvement and the High Level Group, chaired by E. Stoiber were instrumental in evaluating the feasibility and in the identifying further reductions measures, which may be part of new initiatives for reducing administrative burdens during the next Commission.

Moreover, all Member States have now set ambitious national targets, as agreed in 2007.

The Commission will continue to ensure through its impact assessment system that requirements introduced by new policies are kept to the minimum.

The “Action Programme for Reducing Administrative Burdens in the EU” is an essential part of the Commission’s overall Better Regulation Agenda. The aim of this policy is to promote competitiveness, growth and jobs. Reducing regulatory costs imposed on enterprises is also in keeping with the Small Business Act and its “think small first” principle and is one of the key areas for action in the European Economic Recovery Plan.

Today’s announcement confirms that the reduction of administrative burden is a continuous exercise in view of achieving a real impact in every sector on the ground.

Deutsche Bank Research reports on the European market for e-invoicing services.

Sceptics of e-invoicing therefore say that first the billing processes should be modernised because that’s where the biggest savings are. Advocates claim that once e-invoices are being introduced, they would trigger this modernisation.

Read the report below:

Source: www.dbresearch.com & Finextra

To assist organizations searching for ways to optimize their Accounts Payable (AP) processes, OB10, the leading global e-Invoicing network, recently hosted a complimentary webinar titled Overcoming the Top 7 Barriers to e-Invoicing. The webinar, co-hosted by IOMA, the acknowledged leader in providing practical information to the AP profession, taught participants how to identify potential roadblocks when considering an e-Invoicing project for their organizations.

The webinar attracted almost 400 registrants interested in overcoming various obstacles when initiating an e-Invoicing project at their company. Each step outlined during the session provided practical tools that anyone in AP can utilize to help streamline the invoice receipt process and, ultimately, reduce costs.

Donna McGuinness, director, OB10 Western Region, was the featured speaker and walked participants through details of overcoming the seven barriers, starting with a need to understand where to begin as well as knowing what is important to which internal departments.

“Many organizations struggle with knowing where to start, let alone understanding what’s important to which internal groups while working to gain support,” said McGuinness. “Once you know where to begin and you’ve identified the issues that are important to your organization’s departments that may support such an initiative, the other five obstacles can be addressed more readily.”

An organization must then complete their due diligence in steps three and four; fully understanding which options and features are available from which vendors. “There are so many variations out there from so many different providers, it’s easy to become confused about which vendor may be right for you,” added McGuinness. “Organizations should take the time to ask as many questions as they can because it’s important to know and understand exactly what vendors will do and what they will not do. It’s also important to have a thorough understanding about what will be required by you, the buying organization, when implementing an e-invoicing initiative.”

Step five offers details on ensuring a return on investment (ROI) after implementing an e-invoicing initiative. “With other solutions such as OCR and EDI, it’s extremely difficult, if not impossible, to extract a compelling ROI,” said McGuinness. “Organizations considering these other solutions should note that costly hardware and software investments often make implementation cost-prohibitive. With e-Invoicing, significant ROI can be realized in as little as a year.”

Understanding all the details of an agreement and ensuring the selected vendor delivers on an organization’s expectations are critical to step six. Step seven offers insight into ensuring all the right questions have been asked and enough information has been collected to allow the buying organization to make an informed decision.

Duncan Jones, senior analyst for Forrester Research, in the Forrester Wave Report AP-EIPP, Q2 2008, states, “A major challenge for sourcing professionals who want to lead an AP-EIPP selection project is the diverse range of companies claiming to offer invoice automation solutions. Complete solutions will deliver four key capabilities: enable suppliers to submit invoices electronically, straight from their own systems; transform the data into a usable format and layout; validate data, using supporting records and discrepancy approval workflows; and provide process monitoring so buyers and suppliers can work together to reduce errors. Complete AP-EIPP solutions will automate the functions necessary to support these four stages of the invoice-to-pay process.”

“Organizations must also understand that success ultimately lies in the supplier enrollment process,” said McGuinness. “You can’t obtain ROI, cost savings or optimization without ensuring that your suppliers have been enrolled and are transacting. By following these simple but important steps, organizations can be better equipped to make informed decisions when selecting an e-Invoicing provider.”

To listen to the webinar in its entirety, including the FAQ session, and to fully understand what it takes to initiate a successful e-Invoicing project in your organization, log onto the OB10 web site at http://ob10.com/Country/US/Webinars_2 and click on the link near the bottom titled Overcoming the Top 7 Barriers to e-Invoicing.

About OB10
OB10 (www.OB10.com) is the leading global B2B e-Invoicing network. OB10 simplifies and streamlines the complex invoice-to-pay processes. Neither client organizations nor their suppliers are required to implement any hardware or software, and OB10 is independent of data file formats. OB10 can reduce the cost of paper invoice processing by typically 60 percent and can deliver an ROI in less than a year if the program follows OB10’s best practice guidelines. Operational across Europe, North America and Asia, OB10 is compliant with the requirements of VAT, tax and e-Invoicing legislation and receives invoices from suppliers in over 100 countries. To ensure unrivalled and rapid supplier enrollment, each new customer’s suppliers are supported by an implementation services team responsible for getting them up and running on the OB10 network.

 
 
Duncan Jones, senior analyst at Forrester, gives a detailed account of why companies should embrace electronic invoicing.

A recent survey by the US Institute of Management and Administration found that the average administration cost per invoice is €30. Even more worrying, 70% of the AP managers surveyed did not know the figure for their own company. Yet companies that have implemented accounts payable electronic invoice presentment and payment (AP-EIPP) report huge savings and massive ROI. Finance directors with significant AP processing costs who haven’t yet done so should make it a priority to consider AP-EIPP and include it in their enterprise application strategies.

Humans are expensive and error-prone
Forrester Research has interviewed dozens of companies using AP-EIPP to find out what they have done and why. Our respondents cited three key issues driving the project’s business case. Prior manual processes, they told us, were:

Too slow to capture payment discounts and honour contracted payment terms.
One company had such a large backlog that many invoices were already overdue for payment before they were first touched by an AP clerk.

An expensive non-value-adding activity.
Our research aligns with the IOMA survey of cost per invoice ranging from €10 to €100.
The main cost driver is the number of invoices that cannot be successfully validated first time e.g. because they do not reference or have a different price to supporting purchase orders (POs).

Unreliable, often failing to spot invoice errors.
AP clerks may ignore price differences, wave through extra charges and even process duplicate invoices for a single service.

Prior AP improvement efforts had limited success

Many finance directors initiated projects that focused internally on AP, resulting in incomplete solutions that failed to address the underlying causes of invoice processing problems. Business process outsourcing (BPO) is an example – certainly there are savings from labour arbitrage and economies of scale, but its better to eliminate manual processes than merely make them slightly cheaper and faster.

Document management systems (DMS) are another superficially attractive option that look good on paper, if you’ll pardon the pun, but under-deliver in practice. Sellers of DMS, which combine scanning, optical character recognition (OCR) and work flow, sometimes convince FDs that all their problems can be solved by turning the paper into electronic images, but this isn’t true. DMS can’t parse sufficient data from the invoice image to drive automatic matching and approval, so they do little to reduce the problem invoices that cause all the work. They do, however, enable BPO and shared service centres to dump the discrepancy resolution effort back on the requisitioning departments and claim that as an efficiency gain.

AP-EIPP products automate the Invoice-to-Pay process

So why do so many companies still use people? Because until recently, the absence of document standards meant that human beings were essential to process unfamiliar invoice layouts and parse out vital information and key data into the AP system.

AP-EIPP products automate and streamline the Invoice-to- Pay (I2P) process in four stages: receiving electronic invoices (e-invoices) instead of paper, transforming it into a usable form, validating it with supporting records, and passing approved invoices through to payment (see Figure 1). Complete EIPP solutions, either from a single provider or assembled by a system integrator, will:

Enable suppliers to submit invoices electronically.
Ideally, e-invoicing solutions accept data direct from suppliers’ sales order processing systems, but they also provide websites for suppliers to manually input or upload invoices online. Solutions should include OCR for suppliers who cannot or will not support true e-invoicing.

Transform the data into a usable format and layout.
Without universal data standards, systems have to be trained to recognise each supplier’s file layout and work out what each bit of data represents from its position in the file or how it is labelled. For example, a supplier may send data in a tagged format such as XML, but the EIPP system has to learn that the field labelled ‘your reference’ is the same as what it calls ‘PO number.’ Advanced products also apply business rules to validate the invoice and correct simple mistakes.

Validate data, using supporting records and discrepancy approval work flows.
AP-EIPP products match invoices with POs goods received notes (GRNs) and other supporting records. They use business rules to wave through immaterial differences, such as small additional freight charges of low value, and route exceptions to the appropriate person for review and action.

Provide process monitoring and invoice status reports.
AP-EIPP products provide portals so that buyers’ AP- and suppliers’ AR-clerks can track invoice status and expedite as appropriate. Key performance indicator (KPI) reporting helps management prioritise action to reduce invoice discrepancies and increase straight through processing (STP). The best products include a ‘pay-me-now’ feature so suppliers can dynamically ask to get paid faster, either by the customer, in return for an early payment discount, or by a third party supply chain finance (SCF) provider.
Impressive results

After speaking to a number of companies that have implemented AP-EIPP, three key themes have consistently emerged. The consensus is that enterprises embarking on an EIPP project should:

Initiate a cross-functional I2P improvement program.
All top-level stakeholders must support the initiative or it may be seen as an IT-driven project, or a scheme by the finance department to pass its work to other departments.

Aim for 100% STP.
Project teams should consider every invoice category and envisage how human intervention could be minimised, if not eliminated. I advise clients to think in terms of ‘yes, if…’ instead of ‘no, because …’. Our best case studies found ways to cut manual steps for even the most intractable categories such as complex field services.

Focus on maximising supplier participation.
STP, discrepancy notification and access to SCF enable suppliers that e-invoice to get paid faster than those who stick to paper – which is especially important in today’s economy.

Finance directors should evaluate what AP-EIPP can do for them.

The AP-EIPP market is growing by nearly 30% per year. The potential benefits – lower administration costs, better visibility and reduced error rates – are clear. Now is a good time for FDs to learn more about the technology, and how it could help them streamline their I2P processes. A good way to start is by formalising the collection of KPIs such as administration cost per invoice, % of invoices supported by PO, and % matched first time without errors. This data can help FDs identify where there is the greatest scope for improvement – such as which expense categories cause most problems for the AP department and what would have to be done to achieve 100% STP? Above all, FDs should look for a complete solution and set the goal of getting most suppliers submitting invoices electronically, with the maximum possible straight through processing.

Christian Kersten and Stefan Waelde of Lufthansa AirPlus GmbH tell FDE how their invoice management unit, billinx, is helping to streamline financial supply chains.

According to analyst firm Billentis, there are almost one million companies in Europe that send or receive e-invoices, with 985 million e-invoices sent in 2008, and a 45% increase in the B2B sector. As the einvoicing arm of Lufthansa AirPlus GmbH, billinx helps CFOs automate their B2B invoice processes, thereby reducing costs and improving working capital metrics.

‘Since 1996, the core markets in which we have grown and proved the power of our business model are Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Benelux, though of course we are able to follow our clients to any international market,’ explains executive director, invoice management, Christian Kersten.

‘We intend to expand our customer and supplier base throughout Europe, offering a first-class B2B service with reliable e-invoicing and payments services that interface efficiently with all major ERP systems.’

billinx has three core offerings: the billinx eXchange; the billinx account; and the billinx card. With the vast networks of account details amassed by card companies such as AirPlus, it is no surprise that card companies are leading the race when it comes to e-invoicing.

Over 1,000 merchandisers accept the billinx card. However, billinx card holders are not confined to dealing with accredited merchandisers.

‘Where a merchant is not connected to our system, we set up an interface between that supplier and our platform as part of service we call “roll out management”,’ explains billinx director Stefan Waelde. ‘We establish that link at the highest level – an integration interface – with a client’s ERP system. We also run a multilingual online portal that enables clients or merchants to enter a transaction manually. Alternatively, we can scan our clients’ invoices from different suppliers and convert them to an electronic format. Whichever method is used, we provide control of expenditure, the matching of orders, invoices and delivery notes, and, where required, payment systems.’

Taking control
‘The control given to the finance function is particularly important,’ adds Kersten, ‘because it can define a limit on each transaction; where the billinx card can be used and in what time period. Purchasing departments would typically use a single virtual card for their transactions. We can also institute pre-transaction approval for all purchases or for those above an agreed amount.’

For additional security and control of the invoicing process, the billinx eXchange enables qualified digital signatures to be employed. ‘The eXchange links the invoicing party and the invoicing recipient through our trust centre, which verifies both the digital signature and the amounts,’ explains Waelde. ‘For the issuer, it offers flexibility, clear auditing and easy complaints management. For the recipient, there is the reliable digital signature coupled with sales tax recognition as well as an online recording of small vendors.’

‘It is our belief that this high quality and reliable invoice exchange which can of course also be linked to automated payments by our customers, is the future as companies cut costs and boost efficiencies by moving to paperless transactions.’

‘The imperative to cut costs has rarely been greater than now. Until recently, CFOs had been looking for savings on their operations side. But the financial processes and the creation of a truly streamlined financial supply chain have, in our view, been generally overlooked.’

‘Maybe companies imagine such a key beneficial change will be too disruptive at a time when every penny of cashfow counts. But they would be wrong. Including workshops, it takes a maximum of six weeks to set up a client’s ERP system on the billinx eXchange platform and just seven days to establish a supplier. This is a small investment for a big return.’

 
Research by Forrester has shown that each manually processed invoice can cost a company as much as €100. Yet the European Union’s drive to promote electronic invoice presentation and payment (EIPP) has not borne fruit. So what can be done to help EIPP take off? MasterCard’s Laurent Vreven has the answers.

FDE: How do you assess the EIPP market and what is your take on the reasons that it has failed so far to take off?

Laurent Vreven, Mastercard Product Manager for Company Payment Solutions: Less than 5% of all invoices are currently exchanged electronically, yet e-invoicing has been around for over ten years. One main reason is that EIPP solutions are vendor-centric. So, every single vendor has its own EIPP solution.

In addition, there is no single format for e-invoicing and this adds to the problem of systems, none of which are totally interoperable. It is therefore only big suppliers and purchasers that have had the time and money to link into these systems. At the moment, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) simply cannot afford to go into the EIPP space.

So what is changing?

The changes are coming about through a combination of cost-cutting pressures and the corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda. As recent Forrester research has shown, the cost of manual invoice processing, with the inevitable errors and omissions that it brings, is now insupportable.

The savings, not simply in terms of staffing costs but actually of paper and its movement to and within an organisation, are substantial. Add to these the reduction of the corporate carbon footprint and specifically the saving of trees, and the case for EIPP is clear.

If companies can link into a payment network and make invoice processing electronic, they can thereby create process efficiencies while reducing their costs and contributing to their CSR agenda, there is surely no contest.

And who is driving these changes?

Large corporates that are already dealing with each other are now looking to push EIPP further down their customer and supplier chain. In Europe, perhaps surprisingly, it is the public sector that has so far been a significant driver for change. Many local governments already using EIPP have commitments to work with local suppliers, often SMEs.

The software suppliers are, therefore, responding by coming up with ingenious scaleable EIPP solutions that are affordable and manageable to these companies. But there remains the question of systems interoperability.

In terms of the scalability in EIPP systems, until now smaller companies found it hard to make the business case to invest in software and see the payback. MasterCard is seeking to break down those barriers and find a way to SMEs that do not have the time and funds to set up EIPP.

We recognise that there is a vast commercial opportunity there in terms of harmonisation and the business that can be captured.

So where does MasterCard fit into EIPP?

We already have a sizeable position in the e-invoicing space, though this is not widely appreciated. We are seeking to marry the advantages of e-invoicing to the MasterCard payment mechanism.

Whether a company is using a physical or a virtual payment card, we are linking all elements together to produce a one-stop-shop solution for invoicing, payments and some of the peripherals services linked in to them. And we are no longer aiming purely at the top sector on the market, we are focusing on mid-market companies and will eventually be looking to SMEs as well.

If you take the UK for instance, MasterCard has some 10,000 enabled business-to-business purchasing card suppliers. We see that market expanding rapidly. MasterCard is in a position to become a hub between the various parties, so that we can facilitate e-invoicing between vendors, buyers and issuing banks.

By encouraging companies to increase their use of commercial cards, be they physical cards or payments processed by MasterCard, we are going to see the dematerialising of paperwork and a major boost for EIPP.

Is MasterCard providing the EIPP software to enable SMEs to benefit?

No we are not; we are working with third party suppliers of EIPP systems. Our job is to provide the global platform for transactions and the flow of data necessary to allow the EIPP systems to do their work, not least in Europe in the way they account for VAT to the different tax authorities, the requirements for which vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

What is the new EIPP software coming to market and where will it sit with the systems already used by large organisations? Will it be plug-and-play?

So far, the focus of the software houses has been on the top companies that have helped pay for the development of EIPP systems. But now there is a movement towards systems designed for smaller businesses that may ultimately be plug-and-play.

But the key consideration for us at MasterCard is not so much the software but what it provides, which is the next step in the value chain. We are looking to build a holistic solution. E-invoicing by itself does not for instance do much for the vendor, because you still have issues like delinquency and receivables management to be addressed.

However, when you start adding the MasterCard payment mechanism and the guarantees that come with our authorised transactions, it immediately addresses the receivables management for a supplier.

So this is what you mean by MasterCard acting as a facilitator?

Yes, an EIPP system by itself is fine from a data collection, record-keeping point of view, but for the merchant, it does not bring any certainty about the payment. However with MasterCard, the merchant enjoys our payment guarantee. The transaction details are submitted instantly and the merchant can normally be paid within two or three days.

All transaction data flows are integrated within MasterCard and our global data warehouse so the reporting and invoicing go into our system and then into the merchandisers’ or purchasers’ EIPP.

We appreciate that there are currently various levels of interaction by different players in the marketplace but by routing transactions through MasterCard, where we are already at the forefront with a sizeable position in the EIPP space, we believe that businesses and organisations obtain new efficiencies in accounts payable and receivable, cut costs, boost cash flow and improve their carbon footprint into the bargain.

We have already built a global infrastructure to handle any transaction and we therefore believe that we have all the right assets to be able to position ourselves strongly in the EIPP market space.

Are these new developments applicable only to MasterCard purchasing cards or do they also cover traditional travel and entertainment [T&E] cards?

From our point of view we see no difference between the cards, so yes both these transactional cards are being handled. Let me put this in context. Companies buy and source goods and services and whatever is purchased and wherever the transaction, it is sourcing.

In the past T&E has been regarded as a separate indirect cost that is treated differently, but we do now see a fundamental change in this. One indication of the change is that you see travel managers in larger companies are now coming under the control of the strategic sourcing directors. This is an indication that companies are starting to see T&E as sourcing like any other service.
 

“Achieve greater ROI through automated business communications” :New program bases eco-savings on StreamServe’s proven ability to help businesses save resources, reduce costs and improve their overall brand among customers and prospects.

StreamServe, Inc., a leading provider of business communication solutions, today unveiled the StreamServe Sustainability Program, which helps businesses become more cost-efficient while aiding them in achieving their goals of becoming less reliant on our planet’s resources.

Since its founding in 1997, StreamServe has provided businesses in the financial services, utility and supply chain sectors with business communication solutions that meet the demanding challenges for producing and delivering highly customized documents in any format. By leveraging existing ERP, CRM and content management infrastructure that already exists within the enterprise, StreamServe offers businesses an easy way to improve customer and business communications through the delivery of highly-personalized documents and invoices in either paper or electronic format.

Based upon years of collected results from StreamServe’s customers and through consultation with industry analysts and experts focused on green IT, we have established benchmarks which help businesses achieve financial as well as sustainable returns. The StreamServe Sustainability Program offers a series of research, best practices, and tools designed to help businesses determine the eco-savings that can be achieved through StreamServe’s business communication solutions.

“StreamServe’s Sustainability Program adds a new layer to our company’s existing solutions by assisting businesses realize the full eco-impact that these solutions can provide,” said Dennis Ladd, president and CEO, StreamServe. “By significantly reducing resources, such as paper, ink and electricity – StreamServe’s solutions are enabling businesses to improve their sustainability and become more attractive to their business prospects and customers. By reducing resources and leveraging existing IT infrastructure, businesses are also realizing the quick return on investment that can be achieved through StreamServe’s solutions.”

For businesses, the StreamServe Sustainability Program achieves eco-goals while lowering costs and improving efficiencies (and thus profit); reduces carbon, toxins and fossil fuels needed for production; and raises public awareness to their environmental activities. For the customers of these businesses, the StreamServe Sustainability Program demonstrates the clear cost-savings of receiving statements electronically versus on paper; lets them select how they wish to receive business communications (i.e., email, text, web portal); and offers messages for how they too can reduce their impact on the environment.

“The cost-savings that can be achieved through StreamServe’s solutions are impressive,” said Mike Balin, StreamServe’s senior director of Strategic Marketing and Sustainability Initiatives. “For example, we calculated that if a utility company with a total of five million customers and a monthly billing cycle, delivers 15% of its total annual invoices from paper to electronic, it would represent a net savings of 70 million sheets of paper not printed each year. This corresponds to a savings of 802 metric tons of carbon production, which is the CO2 equivalent of 7,332 trees, 147 passenger vehicles, 91 thousand gallons of gasoline, 2.6 million kilowatt hours, or the annual electricity use for 106 homes.”

While initially focused on the utilities market, StreamServe’s Sustainability Program will eventually expand to demonstrate the cost-savings that can be achieved in other markets, including financial services and supply chain (i.e., manufacturing and distribution).

“Organizations today increasingly want to become more efficient, cost-effective and sustainable by shrinking paper footprints in favor of digital processes,” said Tom Raftery, sustainability analyst at RedMonk. “Few vendors have the paper reduction capability and potential of StreamServe because of its clear focus on sustainable billing and invoicing.”

To learn more about the StreamServe Sustainability Program and to calculate how much your business could save, both in terms of environmentally and financially, please see: http://www.streamserve.com/sustainability.

About StreamServe™
StreamServe is a leading provider of Enterprise Document Presentment solutions that set the standard for business communications. Simple to deploy and maintain, the company’s dynamic document composition, document process automation and enterprise output management solutions meet the demanding challenges of today’s global businesses for producing and delivering highly customized documents in any format.

StreamServe’s advanced software solutions ease the process of composing and automating business communications, enabling organizations to increase the value and profitability of their business relationships. This is done all while leveraging existing business applications such as ERP, CRM and ECM.

The company was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Burlington, Mass., with 14 offices worldwide. StreamServe serves more than 5,000 customers in 130 countries, primarily in the financial services, utilities, manufacturing, distribution and telecom sectors. Customers include BMW France, CLP Power Hong Kong, Plantronics, and Siemens Financial. StreamServe’s strategic partners include Adobe Systems, IBM, InfoPrint Solutions Company, Lawson, and SAP.

To learn more about how StreamServe’s EDP solutions can improve the effectiveness of your organization’s communications, please visit us online at http://www.streamserve.com.

 
Gianfranco Tabasso, a member of the EC’s experts group on e-invoicing and co-ordinator of CAST, stresses the importance of working capital management improvement programmes and its relationship with e-invoicing, and the automation of the financial supply chain (FSC).

When times are hard liquidity becomes the top priority for companies. Unfortunately, the current crisis in the capital markets and the shaky state of the banking system has made it harder to come by external sources of financing, such as capital and loans, and has increased costs.

With falling sales revenues, senior managers are increasingly looking for ways to free up cash within their companies such as delaying investments, cutting operating expenses and reducing working capital requirements.

Freeing up cash
Working capital management (WCM) is a CFO’s primary responsibility and the major source of internal financing, with corporations on both sides of the Atlantic operating with excess working capital, estimated in the order of €1,000bn.

“Companies that cut CC days improve their ROCE, showing up in the first quartile of C2C ranking in their industry.”

Working capital accounts roughly for 15% of sales and 20% of total capital employed. The appeal of focusing on working capital stretches beyond the balance sheet by positively affecting P&L. Effective management of working capital can also allow a one-off release of cash and ongoing cost benefits. Working capital management is therefore of strategic importance and a key driver for operational and financial performance and market valuations.

Improving the cash conversion cycle (C2C) is a key responsibility of CFOs and cash cycle (CC) days are the key indicators of WCM. There is a relation between good WCM and financial performance. Companies that cut CC days improve their ROCE, showing up in the first quartile of C2C ranking in their industry. For instance, according to Ernst & Young, between 2001 and 2005, 3M company managed to reduce CC days by 26%, and improved ROCE in the same period from 25% to 39%. BT cut C2C from 27 to 11 days and went from a negative ROCE in 2001 to 10% in 2005.

The potential of WC
Ernst & Young estimates that the leading 1,000 European companies have a €420bn ‘excess’ of working capital, or 18% total working capital. By implementing best practices they could see an annual cost reduction of €18bn. For these companies, realising the full working capital cash and cost potential would reduce debt by 33%, increase net profit by 8% and improve ROCE from 13.5% to 15.4%.

The same projection shows that these companies have a WC reduction potential of -47% (inventory -16%, A/R -15 %, A/P +24%). Comparable US companies have a -36% potential, having done some of the work already.

Improvement programmes tackle each component of WC and specialists and well-established methodologies can be used to reduce inventory, re-negotiate terms of trade with clients and suppliers, improve payments and collections, and improve conditions with banks.

Working capital and e-invoicing
You may be convinced of the importance of WCM improvement programmes but what is their relationship with e-invoicing and automation of the financial supply chain (FSC)?

FSC automation and e-invoicing are the most powerful tools to reduce working capital requirements, cut operating costs, increase quality of service, reduce operational risks, and improve relations with suppliers, customers, banks and other parties along the chain.

Unlike other methods for improving WC that usually end in a zero-sum game, dematerialisation, standardisation, and full integration of the links of the chain creates a win-win situation.

Corporate Action for Standards (CAST), an ongoing initiative of the European Association of Corporate Treasurers, estimates that if European companies switched from paper to electronic invoicing they would make annual savings of €243bn. Individual companies could reduce administrative process costs by as much as 80%.

A combination of e-invoicing and ‘reverse factoring’ could also cut financing delays by 37 days and reduce interest rates for suppliers.

Another area that is labour-intensive and prone to errors is automatic reconciliation of A/R with incoming payments. CAST studied a number of cases and found that possible improvements affected each component of the cycle, including sending, receiving, controlling and booking of an invoice, payment, remittance advice, reconciliation and booking of payment.

CAST recommended the use of new XML standards for the invoice, remittance advice and payment, improvements in ERP functionalities and more cooperation between the parties. The result is a higher degree of end to end straight-through processing (E2E STP) which benefits all parties.

Until recently, few CFOs thought of electronic invoicing, standards, the internet and FSC automation as strategic projects that demanded their attention and involvement. It was considered too technical, something to be left entirely to CIOs and IT managers. The evidence gathered by CAST in 2007-2008 shows how the presence of financial departments is still minimal in FSC automation projects.

But times are changing. A survey of German CFOs shows how e-invoicing ranks as the number one area for potential improvements. The study found:

• 76.4% of CFOs prefer an integrated solution for the financial supply chain to optimisation of single components because there is more potential in a harmonised approach
• 52% consider the interlocking of financial processes with customers and suppliers to be fundamental
• Although 25% of the IT budget is allocated to financial processes only 6% are content with their financial processes.

“Standards are primarily set by banks, ICT providers and consultants, all from the ’sell side’.
 

Setting standards
To work efficiently and operate at low cost, a ‘network economy’ needs commonly accepted standards. To obtain cooperation, the solution must benefit all participants in the chain, for example it should achieve E2E STP in communication and interfaces with internal procedures, which is possible only by adopting the same standards.

After years of confusion and dispersion, a ‘new world order’ is taking shape, with ISO and UN CEFACT recognised as the international standards in the business domain. Under the aegis of ISO 20022, a new family of XML standards has been developed over the last four years, covering the area of payments, invoicing, financing and securities.

Various standards organisations, covering single industries, are adopting XML and wish to register under the ISO label, which guarantees compatibility and acceptance. While this is fine in principle, there is a problem with the limited involvement of end-users in setting standards. Corporates and CFOs take standards for granted and few companies send their experts to organisations and working groups that evaluate and develop business standards. Standards are primarily set by banks, ICT providers and consultants, all from the ‘sell side’.

Another anomaly with standards is that, despite their importance, there is little or no money supporting their development. Experts have other jobs, their time for standards is limited. There is no money for field research and testing.

SWIFT is a notable exception. It employs experts, has a budget, pays expenses of working group members and has always tried to include corporates in its development process. But often, corporate response has been disappointing.

Therefore, CAST’s other major objective is to familiarise CFOs with the world of standards and commit them to support development work.

Standards organisations need corporate people to define business requirements, evaluate and test finished results. Corporates experts must sit at the same table as banks, ERP providers and standards experts to produce workable solutions. SEPA is the latest unfortunate example of standards decided by banks alone.

Tying it together
E-invoicing is the linchpin of the financial value chain because it starts the payment cycle, records monetary amounts in GL and provides VAT to governments.

Directive 2006/112/EC, amending Directive 2001/115/EC, currently rules VAT and e-invoicing but the EC has published a proposal of amendments and an expert group created by the commission is at work to provide a European e-invoicing framework to overcome barriers and provide incentives for faster growth of e-invoicing, particularly among SMEs.

What are the barriers and the problems of e-invoicing? The primary barrier is legal uncertainty in cross border e-invoicing. The VAT directive left too many options to member states and too much room for interpretation. The result is the existence of national legislations with differences that make it complex and expensive for a multinational and/or its service provider to be compliant in all the countries where it operates.

Today there is little interoperability between operators of different countries, because of competition, cost, complexity, and the risk of ‘loss of control’ when conferring a file to another intermediary who is not the final end-user.

Some of the differences and complexities concern the use of electronic signatures. The directive defines three systems for producing a valid electronic invoice: EDI, advanced electronic signature, and other means to prove authenticity and integrity. Most countries opted for electronic signature. The Nordic countries, the UK and a few others chose EDI and other means.

In the current directive, the concern of the legislator is data protection including proof of origin, authenticity and the integrity of the electronic document, from its creation to its archiving. The proposal changes all of this. Directives must be technology-neutral with no prescriptions but only high principles, a code of practice and best-practice guidelines. The basic principles are:

• equal legal treatment for paper and electronic invoices
• control in internal processes of companies is more important than data protection.

Electronic signature is allowed but no longer prescribed as a method for producing valid e-invoices.

To be approved and adopted by member states by the end of 2012, the new directive must be voted in unanimously by the European Council. National communities are starting to evaluate the proposal and its implications. Smooth sailing through the council is by no means guaranteed.

Source: www.the-financedirector.com

Lufthansa is reducing costs and paper consumption with OB10 e-Invoicing in its accounting department.

Lufthansa has announced that it is implementing electronic invoicing with OB10, the world’s leading e-Invoicing network. The objective is to use the OB10 service to generate tax-compliant invoices, thereby reducing invoice management costs both in Germany and internationally.

“OB10 is an international operation – like Lufthansa – and fulfils our requirements for electronic invoice processing in the countries that are most important to us.  Thanks to our ANY-TO-ANY DATA FORMATTING we can handle any type of invoice format – without requiring our customers or their suppliers to install additional hardware or software.”

“We are proud that with Deutsche Lufthansa AG, we are working with another client who wants to encourage their suppliers to become part of our global network.”
Although the majority of invoices at Lufthansa in Germany are already received via EDI (with the accompanying summary invoice) thousands of paper invoices for goods and services still arrive at Lufthansa every year. The manual processes for managing incoming invoices are not only time-consuming and costly, but also prone to error. All of this will now come to an end. As part of the new e-Invoicing project, which will initially be implemented in Germany and eight other countries including the US, the UK and Canada, the majority of invoices will be processed completely in electronic form using OB10.

Lufthansa equips itself for the future
In addition to the cost savings e-Invoicing delivers, Lufthansa expects the cooperation with OB10 to lead to considerable process simplification. Over the medium term, the entire Financial Supply Chain is to be moved to an electronic process. Additional advantages of the e-Invoicing system include faster transmission of invoices and significantly improved data quality as invoice information is fed directly into the ERP system and its associated archive. Lufthansa will also benefit from higher productivity in its invoice processing due to the automated validation of invoice data. Furthermore, pure electronic invoicing will greatly reduce the number of invoices from suppliers that cannot be allocated, and therefore significantly reduce the accompanying queries and complaints regarding payment. e-Invoicing also has advantages for suppliers as they not only profit from reduced process costs, but also the cost and time delays associated with posting invoices.

“OB10 is an international operation – like Lufthansa – and fulfils our requirements for electronic invoice processing in the countries that are most important to us,” says Martin Steuernagel, Department Manager for External Accounting at Deutsche Lufthansa AG. “That makes OB10 the ideal partner to simplify many of our more complex external invoicing procedures with e-Invoicing. What really tipped the scales for OB10, however, was the supplier enrolment programme, which will ensure that our international suppliers and partners will also be promptly connected to the OB10 network. Nobody else offers this type of programme – in seven different languages – and it will help us save valuable time and resources as we implement the overall project.”

“Thanks to our ANY-TO-ANY DATA FORMATTING we can handle any type of invoice format – without requiring our customers or their suppliers to install additional hardware or software,” adds Jamie Gunn, CEO, OB10. “We are proud that with Deutsche Lufthansa AG, we are working with another client who wants to encourage their suppliers to become part of our global network.”

About OB10
OB10 (www.OB10.com) is the leading global B2B e-Invoicing network. OB10 simplifies and streamlines the complex invoice-to-pay processes. Neither client organizations nor their suppliers are required to implement any hardware or software, and OB10 is independent of data file formats. OB10 can reduce the cost of paper invoice processing by typically 60 percent and can deliver an ROI in less than a year if the program follows OB10’s best practice guidelines. Operational across Europe, North America and Asia, OB10 is compliant with the requirements of VAT, tax and e-Invoicing legislation and receives invoices from suppliers in over 100 countries. To ensure unrivalled and rapid supplier enrollment, each new customer’s suppliers are supported by an implementation services team responsible for getting them up and running on the OB10 network.

ING strengthens focus on electronic invoicing with Anachron After raising its stake in Billington to 100%, ING has now also increased its interest in Anachron, a specialist in the field of electronic invoicing. ING expects the majority of European companies to switch to electronic invoicing within the next five years.

The increase in ING’s stake in Anachron to 30%, as well as the strengthening of the cooperation between its Billington unit and Anachron, illustrate the vision ING has for the future and the role it sees for electronic invoicing in the payments sector. Anachron is one of the top European companies in this rapidly developing market and its expertise makes it a very important partner. The cooperation builds on the activities already developed by the two parties in the field of electronic invoicing and will look at opportunities for their further expansion on the European market through ING’s national and international network.

ING foresees strong growth in the electronic invoicing market. “Within the next five years we expect the majority of European companies to use electronic invoicing,” said Robert Heisterborg, responsible at ING for corporate payments in his capacity as Global Head of Payments and Cash Management for ING Wholesale Banking.”The agreement reached this week between the Confederation of Netherlands Industry and Employers (VNO-NCW) and Dutch SME employers’ organisation MKB-Nederland with the Deputy Ministers of Economic Affairs, Finance and the Interior confirms the expectation that electronic invoicing is going to be the norm.”

Market growth for ING unit
Billington and Anachron ING benefits from the combined forces of its Billington unit and Anachron. Billington is a full-service provider of electronic invoicing solutions for the corporate (B2B) and consumer markets. Anachron is specialised in developing electronic invoicing solutions which are made available through the internet. “We have been developing solutions for e-invoicing since 1999. Via our customers’ websites we present invoices with interesting functionality that optimise both the outgoing and incoming flows of invoices. This makes it possible for customers to consult the e-archive at any given time, providing them not only with information on the status of their invoices but also with the ability to answer customer questions quicker. It also allows recipients to retrieve invoicing data automatically in their own system, creating important cost savings for them too. Used in more than 25 countries, our e-billing solutions are of course completely compliant with all EU regulations. We elected to join forces with ING because of the international network of ING Payments & Cash Management and its leading position both in the Netherlands and abroad,” said Anachron CEO Frank Hoekstra.

Facilitating payments is one of ING’s core activities. Combining its knowledge of payment processes with innovations in the field of electronic invoicing, ING offers a complete range of products from invoicing to payments. This makes ING even better positioned to benefit from a large portion of expected market growth.

Advantages of e-invoicing
Robert Heisterborg: “For companies the advantages of electronic invoicing are quicker payments and better working capital management, on top of the cost savings provided by the transition from manual paper invoicing to automated e- invoicing. Invoices can also be paid automatically.” At the same time, consumers also benefit from electronic invoicing. Heisterborg: “Consumers get their own archive containing all their important invoicing information and an electronic expenditure book providing easy-to-access product information. It’s a simple way to pay invoices.”