After reading this through, what do you think: how much/little has changed since 2006?

The Power of Electronic Invoice Presentment and Payment

In recent decades, companies of all shapes and sizes have focused significant effort on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of their accounts payable (A/P) organization. Yet most finance executives remain unsatisfied with the current levels of correction work, manual processing, filing and matching activities still required within their organizations. As a result, A/P is poised for a significant transformation.

While ERP systems and EDI have made A/P more efficient over the years, they have not done enough to help companies improve performance by reducing paper handling, eliminating errors at the source and enabling low-cost, external connectivity with all suppliers. A/P, it seems, has reached a productivity plateau. But a breakthrough solution has emerged to address this issue: Electronic Invoice, Payment and Presentment (EIPP). And many top performing organizations are embracing it to reach new levels of A/P efficiencies and savings.

The Opportunity

Research suggests that the average organization is losing $15 million per year for every $1 billion in spend from inefficient A/P processes. Transaction costs, lost early payment discounts, and billing errors drive the savings that are possible. Figure 2, below, outlines the dollars that are at stake.

Figure 1: The EIPP Savings Opportunity

EIPP enables A/P organizations to capture much of these savings by leveraging and improving processes, systems, initiatives, investments and capabilities that are already in place.

A New Approach

EIPP is a powerful approach to A/P designed to create a paperless, fully automated process. With EIPP, suppliers can interact with buyers more quickly and cost effectively than ever before. Through a set of integrated capabilities, suppliers can connect with buyers and receive timely, hassle-free payments as source documents are electronically matched.

Suppliers like EIPP because it isn’t a burden for them to use, facilitates rapid payment, and generates fewer error situations that are expensive to research and resolve. EIPP also can significantly reduce the cost of compliance-related efforts. To understand the types of results that are possible with EIPP, consider the case of a global telecommunications provider, who was able to capture 95% of invoices electronically after a 10 week deployment.

The implementation reduced paper invoice volume by 60%, and cut error rates by over 50%, enabling the finance organization to redeploy A/P personnel (while also improving supplier satisfaction).

So how does EIPP work? Distilled to its core, EIPP comprises four specific solution elements:

Element 1: Capture

The Capture element of EIPP is focused on transforming the paper invoice receiving process and connecting with suppliers. Not all suppliers will want to handle the invoice creation and management process electronically. But the key to EIPP success lies in maximizing supplier participation. So in moving to an automated process, it is important for companies to remain flexible and maintain the ability to flip a PO, convert an invoice and upload an Excel file to accommodate suppliers with varying electronic capabilities. Continuing to accepting paper and incorporating an invoice conversion component for invoice management can also fuel higher adoption rates.

Element 2: Match

The Match aspect of EIPP incorporates contract terms and automates the exception management process by enabling field level, four-way matching. Four-way matching (where an item-level match extends back to the contract) is critical to capturing discounts and reducing error rates. EIPP matching capabilities are highly flexible and configurable based on an organization’s structure and needs, down to the item level. In addition, essential to successful automation and matching is general ledger integration and auto-reconciliation to reduce staff involvement, enabling resources to focus on pressing issues rather than managing paper.

Element 3: Manage

The Manage feature of EIPP focuses on automated routing to accelerate the approval process within an organization. EIPP can dramatically reduce the time spent by A/P personnel managing suppliers by enabling suppliers to track invoice and payment status. At the same time, these types of self-service capabilities can help improve the overall sales and account management process for suppliers, inviting favorable treatment in future discussions and negotiations.

Element 4: Pay

The Pay capabilities within EIPP create a predictable outflow of capital, giving financial executives exacting control over when they chose to pay suppliers. By tightly coupling with an ERP system and financial institution, companies can fine tune invoice payments based on business needs (e.g., reducing costs through taking advantage of early payment discounts). Payment capabilities accommodate multiple payment formats as well as supplier self-service capabilities to enable visibility throughout the process. In addition, EIPP solutions can include capabilities that allow the sourcing of discounts from suppliers in return for early payment.

EIPP: Fact versus Fiction

Without question, EIPP can help A/P organizations take their performance and efficiency to the next level. But identifying and working with the right partner is absolutely essential to success. But there is a lot of misinformation in the market that can lead those considering an EIPP solution to make less-than-optimal business decisions. Perhaps the most widespread myth is the notion that scanning is e-invoicing.

The truth is that scanning only begins to scratch the surface of invoice automation, marginally improving the review and authorization of invoices. Another EIPP fable is that matching is a cure-all. The reality is that basic exception management capability has been a part of A/P processes for over two decades, but has been limited by a lack of internal and external connectivity.

This has led to severe automation limitations such as the ability to match line item level detail. But perhaps the most egregious fallacy in the market is that payment automation is the core of EIPP ROI. In fact, some providers confuse payment automation with having a complete EIPP solution. In the market today, a handful of EIPP providers try to link ROI to concentrated dynamic discounting by connecting a few large suppliers and ignoring the rest. Unfortunately, this approach fails to address compliance and the costs of paper processing.

When these fictions are seen for what they are, the actual truths about EIPP are relatively straightforward. First, supplier enablement is difficult and complex, requiring expertise and economics of scale that few providers can deliver. Unfortunately, a number of companies have faced challenges with supplier enablement in the past and are likely to bury the challenging memories of such initiatives when it comes to EIPP. This is a mistake, and one that organizations can avoid by working with an expert provider who has a proven track record of rapid and cost-effective large-scale supplier enablement initiatives, and the economies of scale to enable low-cost supplier enablement. Second, companies must choose solutions that enable both low and high volume suppliers in order for their efforts to be worthwhile. A solution that delivers maximum payback must take into account high volume suppliers, accommodating existing one-off connections as well as lower volume suppliers through a common network. And third, EIPP must accommodate small, paper-bound suppliers. A disproportionate volume of invoice errors, disputes and costs originate from such suppliers – and every company depends on them. So any solution must address their needs, or the A/P efficiencies that EIPP brings will be severely limited.

Finding the Right Solution

When evaluating and EIPP solution, companies should ensure that it:

• Eliminates (not automates) errors at the source
• Permits suppliers of all sizes to easily and inexpensively connect
• Dramatically reduces the quantity of paper handled, stored and matched
• Improves supplier interactions
• Matches purchase orders, receipts and invoices to contracts
• Accommodates varying degrees of supplier sophistication
• Allows 100 percent capture of invoice volume
• Reduces compliance costs
• Provides earlier visibility into cash requirements
• Removes latency in invoice and payment processing
• Reduces the volume of supplier inquiries
• Offers multi-lingual, multi-currency capabilities
• Provides global, localized support for your company and its suppliers

Above all, companies must look for a partner that can provide a complete solution that focuses on the entire set of business processes necessary to ensure compliance and control. Without question, an EIPP suite should go beyond simple invoice automation, and should eliminate as much paper as possible in the A/P process. This is especially critical to improving performance as paper is the root of high handling costs, error rates, and low discount capture. A solid EIPP solution must possess the ability to handle the “last run” of paper-dependent suppliers (i.e., those that prefer not to do business electronically).

The right EIPP solution will be flexible based on individual needs and circumstances. For example, it should available in both installed and on-demand software models, and help walk-through which model makes the most sense. And the right EIPP partner should be able to help finance and procurement functions rethink what world class A/P should be. With the right EIPP solution and partner, companies can become leaders in the function by addressing core areas for improvement and delivering returns that can become the foundation of future A/P initiatives.

Making the Choice to Invest in EIPP

While the right solution and partner is absolutely critical to enabling EIPP results and maximizing returns, without the commitment to prioritize such efforts, companies will continue to leave opportunity on the table.

Regardless of organizational maturity, existing A/P performance levels, or level of technology sophistication or commitment, EIPP is a one-way ticket to fundamentally improving an ancient business role – getting suppliers paid. Many top performing companies have already realized this, making the decision to prioritize EIPP as a top finance and procurement initiative. What are you waiting for?

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This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Increase Productivity. Not Paper: The Power of Electronic Invoice Presentment and Payment (EIPP).

Mutuaide Assistance, the subsidiary of Groupama providing general assistance services, has chosen electronic invoicing and paperless financial flow specialists Accelya to dematerialise its 400,000 supplier invoices: much more than just an electronic invoicing project, it has become a veritable corporate project, an integral part of its overall strategy, and a growth lever.

A wholly owned subsidiary of Groupama, Mutuaide Assistance performs all activities in the field of assistance, and has acquired considerable experience in assistance since its creation in 1981. With 450 employees and two assistance centres, one in Paris and one in Nantes, Mutuaide Assistance describes itself as a small company among big ones, or a big company among little ones. Over the last few years it has provided assistance for exceptional events, like the main cycling races and the biggest rallies, and it provides services for most tour operators under their own brands.

On the very competitive assistance market, Mutuaide Assistance has started out in an economic race and must monitor the market and its new developments very closely… Electronic invoicing, therefore, appeared to be an obvious step, as underlined by the Managing Director of Mutuaide Assistance Nicolas Gusdorf:

“The strategy consisted in remaining competitive to ensure the company’s future, and, therefore, using different levers to reduce costs. Electronic invoicing quite naturally appeared as one of these levers. There were two objectives: firstly, we wanted to influence our costs and margins; and secondly – Mutuaide Assistance being a socially responsible company – we wanted to reduce our carbon footprint and to generate less paper, but above all, in terms of people, we wanted to offer our account executives higher value-added tasks.”

The electronic invoicing project dates back to early 2010 and concerns 400,000 supplier invoices per year. The company was able to implement the first action quickly with a car rental firm, and the project was rolled out in only five months, from May to September 2010. Mutuaide Assistance is currently targeting its key accounts and main suppliers in this first phase of rolling out the project in structured flows of invoice data.

Short-term objectives: 50,000 tax-compliant electronic invoices in 2011, and 100,000 in 2012.

The project is focused initially on France, before being rolled out to other European countries as of 2012, while, little by little, integrating smaller service providers, like breakdown companies, human services companies, etc.

Quality, cost control and dematerialisation will then be included in the selection criteria for suppliers and service providers.

With strong growth – 13% for the assistance market and 16% for Mutuaide Assistance – the number of cases opened is growing all the time, so are the human resources requirements… and the company can already measure the benefits of the project:

“In a context of strong growth, this project has enabled us to manage our personnel better, and above all to enable them to move on to higher value-added, computer-based tasks such as managing service providers and suppliers, updating cases in real-time, negotiations, etc.” comments Mutuaide Assistance General Secretary Romain Tanguy.

“Dematerialisation absolutely has its place in the company’s overall strategy: finding time for higher value-added tasks, using computer-based tools to manage time more effectively, and working on digitization and electronic document management (EDM).”

Indeed, the group is very committed to the concept of “zero paper”; Mutuaide Assistance is carrying out major digitization projects and implementing internal IT solutions in order to further concentrate on its core business.

Accelya

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Mutuaide assistance dematerialises its supplier invoices with Accelya.

The theory goes that 80% of your invoices are from 20% of your suppliers. You only need to get the biggest 20% of your suppliers on board and you can achieve 80% of your wildest dreams.  That feels like  you can achieve 80% of the results for 20% of the effort. It isn’t that easy though. It’s true that the Pareto rule does mean that you can achieve great results by concentrating on the right areas, the priority suppliers, but regrettably for lots of businesses, the 80:20 rule just doesn’t apply.

Many organisations have an extreme supplier tail. This can be for a variety or reasons but if you have a huge proportion of invoices from a very small group of suppliers but the majority of invoices are from a  large number of relatively small suppliers, your supplier adoption challenge can be massive if you intend to use electronic  invoicing. A similar problem exists if there is a very wide geographical diversity. Numerous diverse tax and legal requirements can make the implementation of e-invoicing an uphill challenge.

But it doesn’t have to be all bad news. Sure there’s challenges but the answer is to recognise that one size doesn’t fit all. You can get close to 100% electronic invoicing if you adopt a hybrid approach.

e-invoicing – the hybrid model

We can debate till we’re blue in the face whether scanning invoices or accepting pdf images is really e-invoicing. It’s irrelevant. AP automation is what we’re trying to achieve. Whether we do that by using a predefined invoice message standard or we achieve it by extracting the data from a paper invoice is immaterial.

The good news is that we don’t need to choose one approach or the other. Indeed, the hybrid approach could be the one that gets the close to 100% electronic invoicing the fastest.

Source: Purchising Insight

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: e-invoicing – one size doesn’t fit all.

Issuing and receiving paper invoices is causing organisations to persistently waste high volumes of paper, due to the fact that manually printed invoices frequently incur mistakes and end up being resent. With e-invoicing (http://www.accountis.com/e-invoicing/environmental-benefits/) however, this is completely avoided due to the fact that electronic systems will instantly pick up and rectify errors prior to the invoice being sent. An extra benefit is that whereas paper invoicing requires masses of storage, e-invoices are all stored digitally which removes the need to fill cabinets jam-packed full of hard copy invoices for several years; which of course end up being destroyed anyway in accordance with the data protection act.

Additionally, the global impact of wasted paper is a mounting concern. According to recent statistics, within just 15 years approximately 20% of Africa’s forests will be gone. The World Conservation Union’s Red List has confirmed that more than 12,000 species (out of the 40,000 assessed) will end up facing extinction as a result. This equates to an alarming 1 bird species in 8, 13% of all flowering species and a huge 25% of all mammals being affected.

Invoicing electronically is hitting environmental issues right at the very core. Reduction in fuel and energy also occurs when invoices don’t need to be carted around in a Royal Mail van, and as a result will help preserve our dwindling fuel resources. It is estimated that just one paper invoice leaves a 100g carbon footprint, meaning that if an average company sends out 12,000 invoices per year this would save 14.4 tonnes (1) of carbon, 57.6 trees (2), 180,000 litres (3) of water and 1872kg of solid waste (3).

Fundtech have an excellent ‘Green Calculator’ (http://www.accountis.com/green-calculator/) on their Accountis EIP website, which will calculate and display the approximate carbon footprint, number of trees, amount of water and solid waste you could end up saving with e-invoicing. Viewing these figures in plain back and white is undeniably shocking.

By removing the need for printed invoices, e-invoicing is addressing environmental issues by helping save forests, preserve energy, and saving oxygen. By opting for e-invoicing, not only will you be replacing a slow, inaccurate manual process with a smooth, more efficient electronic service, you will be saving an astounding amount of energy and resources the second you make the switch. With all of these positives, it is tricky to understand why some companies are still issuing invoices as paper documents (http://www.accountis.com/e-invoicing/paper-to-data/) at all.

(1). Ind. est. of 1 inv.=100g carbon footprint
(2). Euro Banking Association Report 2008
(3). Environmental Defence Fund

Fundtech FSC Ltd is an international provider of invoicing scanning (http://www.accountis.com/e-invoicing/) and payment services including Bacstel-IP, direct debit and direct credit management, account validation and SWIFT.

Founded in 2002, Accountis became part of the Fundtech group in early 2008 and processes over 1 million transactions every day. The Fundtech trusted transaction network is used by many of the World’s largest corporations to leverage existing systems and maximise efficiencies across the financial supply chain.

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Fundtech Accountis: E-invoicing and the Environment.

By Jon Warner, CEO of  PaySwyft (UK)
This article was originally posted on Ezine @rticles

The question posed by this heading might seem to be quite simple at face value, but when we think about it, the answer is not exactly a straightforward one. This is because we are not always aware of the real costs of performing this quite complex task in all of its steps (whether it is done by traditional means or by online means).

In addition, while direct or tangible costs are relatively easy to identify, indirect costs are less easily identifiable and some of these are often very well hidden. Let’s therefore look at what tends to fall into these three categories of costs when comparing traditional paper-based billing versus full on-line or digital billing.

Direct Costs

At face value most people would estimate that a few “direct” costs are involved in paper-based billing. These may include:

•Invoice bill/file preparation/printing
•Paper invoices/bills
•Printing (ink or cartridge replacement)
•Envelopes
•Postage/Franking
•Offering basic payment options (debit, credit, other at standard fees)

Costs will fall as bill volumes increase for most of the above but even if they do postage or franking at about £0.40 to £0.45 pence will always be the biggest fee here. And the others will typically add as much as 30 to 35 pence making for a total of £0.70 to £0.80 of direct costs. Of course, if a merchant emails invoices (with a PDF attachment), instead of physically mailing them this may fall in half perhaps.

Indirect Costs

Costs are often deemed to be “indirect” because they are either fixed and/or cannot be wholly charged to the billing costs (especially if it is only part of a person’s job). However, even proportional costs add up here. Indirect costs may include:

•Customer service manpower to handle calls/queries
•Accounting/Reconciliation manpower
•Lost invoices (and the time taken to deal with this)
•Undelivered bills (and the time taken to deal with this)
•The cost of bill storage (space rental or fixed costs)
•Bill query handling time

Once again there may be some economies of scale in the above but all of these items (except bill storage perhaps) mainly involve having staff on the payroll or at call. Even at 500 bills a month, at least quarter a person would typically be involved in issuing and reconciling invoices and another quarter in handling queries, re-issuing bills or handling “special requests” related to invoicing or payments. If the cost of this person (or two part-timers) were £12,000 a year (£8,000 plus 50% salary/overhead burden) or £6,000 each, this £1,000 a month would amount to £2 per bill.

Hidden Costs

Costs are often deemed to be “hidden” because no-one is scrutinising or controlling them (they go unmeasured or unaccounted for or are lost in general overhead or the broad costs of doing business). Hidden costs may include:

•Extra or hidden payment transaction fees (which may be fixed or higher than necessary)
•Invoice/billing run or payment processing errors
•The need for a higher than wanted or necessary float/overdraft at the bank
•Possible added customers or more business from having more payment options
•Quicker settlement/cycle time (by use of SMS or email alerts)
•Easier training of staff/opportunity to focus staff elsewhere with time saved
•Potential cash-flow acceleration
•Easier/cheaper compliance and audit work with digital billing
•Lower/No cost digital marketing opportunities
•Overall incremental “Green” benefits/credits

The benefits to an organisation of the long list above are obviously much harder to calculate but a variety of studies in recent years have suggested that these can conservatively add up to as much as 3% of revenues or as much as 15% of profit. If we assume our little company doing 500 bills a month has an average transaction or “ticket” value of £40, turnover per month is £20,000 or £240,000 per annum. If we assume that profit is 15% of this or £36,000, this all means that the cost per bill is somewhere between £0.90 to £1.20.

So in summary, if we add all of these costs together which have a total traditional or paper-based billing cost of £3.60 to £4 or 9.5% of the revenue collected each time (£40 average ticket value). Now that’s a quite a serious amount of money for this little company not to take pretty seriously! But what about your company?-what is 9.5% of your revenues? And when you have calculated it in cold hard cash, can you afford not to investigate the potential to save as much as half of this as recurrent savings every year by moving to digital billing?

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jon_Warner

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: What is the real cost of paper versus electronic billing or invoicing?.

Latest release of business-to-business commerce platform enables more buyers and suppliers to connect and collaborate more quickly and efficiently

Each year, over 340,000 buyers and suppliers use Ariba^® Network to connect and transact more than $160 billion in business. And now they can do it faster and better than ever. Ariba, Inc. (Nasdaq: ARBA), the leading provider of collaborative business commerce solutions, today announced the availability of Ariba Network (AN) 49, the latest version of its industry-leading business-to-business commerce platform. Embedded with powerful new features designed to automate the trading partner enablement process, the release allows buyers and suppliers to quickly connect, more effectively collaborate and ultimately, enhance their relationships and the results that they deliver.

“Finding the right trading partners can be hard. Connecting with them can be even harder,” said Jason Kurtz, Vice President, Network and Financial Solutions, Ariba. “AN49 simplifies these tasks by providing companies with a robust set of tools they can use to discover and connect with global suppliers and key business partners in a truly collaborative manner.”

Collaboration: The New Strategic Capability

Companies used to focus exclusively on internal activities and trust that their business would run itself. But those days are long gone. In today’s global economy, it’s all about being connected, efficient and informed across enterprises.

Connected to commerce networks that facilitate collaboration and alignment around key business processes. Efficient by automating key commerce activities to drive greater efficiency and productivity. Informed by participating in communities that deliver market insights and best practices to fuel optimal performance and decisions. With AN49, companies can achieve all three.

Connected

Leveraging enhanced enablement tools embedded within the release, buying organizations can connect suppliers to the Ariba Network in a matter of minutes and achieve quicker value with suppliers who are already enabled. And selling organizations can expand enablement to new trading relationships and increase satisfaction with existing customers.

“In today’s uncertain economy, our business needs can quickly change and it is critical that we have tools and processes in place to respond to them,” said Chris Uriarte, Sourcing Manager, Stage Stores. “The Ariba Network is a unique platform through which we can connect to the right partners in the right places at the right time to achieve our goals, and we currently use it to manage the majority of our sourcing. Having so many qualified vendors at our fingertips has proven invaluable to our business, driving lower costs and operating efficiencies that have positively impacted our bottom line.”

Efficient

With AN49, trading partner enablement is completely automated. So buyers and sellers can eliminate manual tracking tools such as spreadsheets or offline databases and the costs and inefficiencies associated with them. And they can collaborate more efficiently to reduce the cost of invoice and payment processing, increase visibility and control of cash flow, mitigate supply-chain risk and manage cash better.

Informed

In the connected economy, it’s not about the information within an organization, but the intelligence generated through networks. With AN49, there is a direct link from the Ariba Network to Ariba Exchange, an online community of peers and thought leaders where buyers and sellers can gather to share insights and best practices. In addition, new information portals enable buyers to capture supplier questions at registration and post answers in the form of additional content and reference files that can be accessed by the entire supply base.

“Ariba has helped us to transform our business,” said Kevin Govin, CEO, MarkMaster. “Through the Ariba Network, we have created a robust online sales channel that has allowed us to expand our base of new customers by 65 percent and grow our overall business 20 percent year-over-year.”

Get on Board

More than 400 of the companies in the Fortune 500 use the Ariba Network. Over 325,000 selling organizations in 130 countries use it too. Each year, these buyers and sellers transact more than $160 billion in business. They process 20 million in purchase orders and 13 million in invoices. And they send and receive access to 5 million new leads. Want a piece of the action? Visit www.ariba.com/go/network today and get on board.

About Ariba, Inc.

Ariba, Inc. is the leading provider of collaborative business commerce solutions. Ariba combines industry-leading technology with the world’s largest web-based trading community to help companies discover, connect and collaborate with a global network of partners – all in a cloud-based environment. Using the Ariba^® Commerce Cloud, businesses of all sizes can buy, sell and manage cash more efficiently and effectively. Over 340,000 companies around the globe use the Ariba Commerce Cloud to simplify inter-enterprise commerce and enhance results. Why not join them? To get on the path to Better Commerce visit: www.ariba.com/commercecloud/

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Ariba Network grows bigger and better.

Whereas with processing paper invoices, approximately 60% of the emissions are generated by labour and 40% are generated by paper, envelopes, printing, franking and distribution. With e-invoices the labour ratio sours to 99%.

The carbon footprint of an electronic invoice is therefore considerably smaller than that of a paper invoice. A paper invoice generates approximately 450 grams of greenhouse gases, while an electronic invoice can generate as little as 150.

It should be noted that this study dealt with structured e-invoices. Not PDF’s. Even though SME’s prefer to use PDF’s. And with a 99% market share of SME’s in mind the outcomes of this research have to be put in that context. On the other hand the research notes that SME’s that seek to reduce costs by switching to invoices in PDF format are not gaining the most important benefits of electronic invoices.

The research also shows that in addition to the environmental benefits, switching to e-invoices frees resources, making a company more efficient. Freed resources can be used, for example, to improve customer service.

This information comes from a study recently published by the Federation of Finnish Financial Services.

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Finnish Research shows: e-invoice is more efficient and eco friendly.

The discussion can be found here. (NOTE: As the EEI Platform LinkedIN group is now an open group, former discussion are archived and only accessible for current LinkedIN group members)

The poll lead to some discussion. A particular comment from Guillaume Hatt stood out. He said:

having designed and set-up the Worldwide Paperless solution for Alcatel-Lucent, I do have a certain vision of the topic.

1.1/ Standards : There will be several standards flowing through and flowing by as always, but do NOT expect to have ONE standard above the other. On very important aspect that I have encountered is that the ONLY real standards facilitating the e-Invoicing between companies are the one imposed by Governments, as in Mexico , Brasil or Argentina now.

1.2/ Standards are always tweaked and adapted by the Customers and the Partners as soon as the power relationship is too unbalanced, THUS making a B2B connection with one Partner in one standard NOT reusable easily at all. => Late customization !

1.3/ The ONLY standard that you need to focus on is the FISCAL content that you need to manage and prove for the exchange part. Basic Security etc… elements and compliancy with the receiving country laws. Then, from an internal perspective, you need to implement the necessary means to prove your document is the original and un-modified one !

2.1/ Providers of solutions ‘SaaS or others) are always on certain markets, without a worldwide footprint, without sufficient flexibility => reasons for this comes from the demand exceeding largely the offer !

2.2/ Hidden costs from the SaaS are difficult to perceive / identify upfront BEFORE the engagement.

2.3/ Responsibility and accountability are yours in any case in front of the Fiscal authorities, forcing you to get the hands in, even with a back-to-back contract

3/ Legal archiving. The Outsourcing of the time stamping, electronic signature & legal archiving “in the cloud” is always presented as the Holy Grail. Conditions of retrieval and procurement flexibility are often opposing. We usually hear the motto that outsourcing IS flexibility. Not in that case, in which you are outsourcing a legal & fiscal part of your responsibility, taking granted that taking back your archives to switch to another SaaS can be VERY costly…

4/ IS Urbanization is KEY. Today, the SOA and ESB approach are KEY success factors to the eInvoicing as you are able to develop generic services, customized PER message ! For instance, you generate from your ERP an eNotaFiscal (Brasilian invoice), your electronic signature service will apply the Brasilian electronic signature by using the content of the message, same for the European using the SAME signature service.You can the perform the same for the Archiving service etc…

Some other comments:

Antti Larvala
It is too complicated. There is no cross border solution for SMEs.

Carrsten Johan Thessen
Nothing for SME’s – thats not true….

My advice is to get started.
- Use Int. Standards Use SOA oriented middle-ware to create solutions (output management)
- Keep the ERP systems as “untouched” as possible, use and convert the standard output.
- Make sure that its easy to change the solution -
- Keep in mind that standards are not static, they change all the time.

Our biggest problem, as that the press haven’t found out that we are facing a paradigm shift – and when they find out – the market will explode, and to many of the “half-educated” will jump out from the bushes and offer their “services”

Danny Gaethofs
Most problems SME’s indicated /faced were getting the data in and out of there ERP / financial system (if they even have implemented these) and standardise the way they support their business processes with these system and especially standardise on master data (addresses, products, type of orders, …). The doubts of course about the continuing standards discussion played also an important role.

Hans Derksen
It is my opinion that those companies should start with sending an electronic invoice together with the PDF version for the receiving end to get familiar with the new way of handling invoices. There will never be one standard e-invoicing system! If you wait for that, you will miss out.

Bruno BOUTTEAU
PEPPOL offers the open crossborder solution : peppol.eu

Theo Boone
A barrier is the double input we have to make. The input in a webportal and in our ERP system. For a few e-invoicing customers is an interface (between ERP and the webportal) to complicated .

Luis Arias
As far as there´s no common standard availabe yet, with the UN/CEFACT standard initiative set down by the Commision it looks like the cross border problem regarding the standard will be sorted out, at least for the moment. It has been stated that UBL will no longer exist beyond UBL 2.0 according to the agreement between OASIS and UN/CEFACT.

But there´s another task or “barrier” to be sorted out: the interoperability of the digital signatures availables at every county.

The main barriers for SME´s attending thousands of surveys answered by participants in Chambers of Commerce form 9 countries (Italy, Greece, Portugal, Sweden, Romania, Bulgaria, Ireland, Belgium and Spain) could be find out at the documents loaded at the Wesign Portal, but unfortunately by this time the portal has already closed.
Should you have any extra information, do not hesitate to contact me to get the resume of these surveys, which was, as i previously said, public information at the Portal.

Edmund Gray
Electronic Signatures may not be an issue; according to the new VAT Directive (2010/45/EU ) from the EU ,which should be law in all Member States by 2013, there are other simpler means that are also compliant.

Fabio Annovazzi
Simply stated, e-invoicing does not deliver on its promises.

Edmund Gray
I prefer to say there will effectively be no legal barriers to implementing e-invoicing.

It will be up to the recipient of the of the e-invoice to decide what extra layers are required. So if you like Digital Signatures then you must convince the Buyer to require them. Of course the Buyer stands to save up to €60 per invoice over paper based invoice so that may not be easy.

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: What barriers keep you from switching to e-invoicing?.

“Basware Invoice Automation solution together with scan and capture and e-invoicing services remarkably  improve the efficiency of organisations and generate savings. We are happy that our solutions are suitable to all industries and companies of different sizes”, says Ilkka Sihvo, CEO Basware Corporation.

Basware Invoice Automation (IA) uses automatic, business-rule based matching to minimize the need for time-consuming, repetitive invoice-handling tasks and enable efficient management of exceptions. Basware Invoice Automation optimizes process performance in financial departments and business units, enabling your organization to focus on creating added value for your customers.

For more information, please contact
CEO Ilkka Sihvo, Basware Corporation,
Tel. +358 9 8791 7251 or +358 40 501 8251

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Finnish building industry supplier chooses Basware.

•   Reduce Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) – The beauty of E Invoicing is that it allows businesses to retrieve their money quicker from customers by reducing the amount of time wasted whilst your invoice is in the post. Many businesses have since reported a fall in their average DSO after implementing E Invoicing functionality.

•   Reduced print and postage costs – If invoices are sent electronically, businesses are able to save money on the cost of paper, print cartridges, envelopes and postage.

•   Reduced requirement for sending out copy invoices – Time delays are minimised with troublesome customers, as the direct delivery of invoices to the customer’s inbox minimises the likelihood of them claiming they have not yet received their invoice or that it has been lost in the post.

•   Faster dispute resolution – Naturally, the sooner your customer receives their invoice, the quicker they are able to inform you of any issues with their account or amount due.

E-Invoicing solutions (http://www.accountis.com/e-invoicing/) can be fully integrated with complete functionality and the entire supply chain is supported from purchase requisition all the way through to payment. It provides a complex workflow handling for all documents and a suite of integrated international payment solutions (Credit Cards, Direct Debit, SWIFT, CHAPS).

With Accountis you can combine E Invoicing with existing payment services to deepen customer relationships and maintain competitive advantage.

Source: PRLog

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: What are the Benefits of Electronic Invoicing Systems?.

This item was originally posted by Stefan Foryszewski on his “The E-invoicing  Blog”. Stefan Foryszewski is one of the founders of OB10. He is now responsible for Business Development at OB10 and sit on the main Board. He currently also supported the European Commission Expert Group on Electronic Invoicing.

Electronic invoicing (e-Invoicing) networks are helping to save business customers vast amounts of paper each year by completely eliminating the need for printed invoices. e-Invoicing networks help to simplify and streamline the invoice-to-pay process by extracting invoice data from a supplier’s billing system and sending it to their customer’s accounting system – eliminating the need to process, manually key-in, or store paper invoices.

The sending and receiving of paper-based invoices can cause organisations to waste high volumes of paper, due to the fact that invoices are often wrong or inaccurate. Industry figures suggest that anywhere between 8 and 20% of invoice transations regularly have errors in them. With e-Invoicing, this issue is avoided as the inaccuracy is picked up straight away in an electronic format so there is no need for sending paper duplicates; it even eliminates the late payment notification that is also sent out when problems occur.

Many companies worldwide – including HP, GM, Dixons Retail Group, GSK, Barclays, Kellog’s and others in the UK public sector – have adopted an e-Invoicing solution to save valuable environmental resources and improve their corporate responsibility mandates.

The numerous ways in which e-Invoicing can assist companies to improve their CSR and “green” credentials are impressive. Significant, measurable improvements can be made by switching to e-Invoicing, by reducing paper usage, fuel consumption, and storage space.

The amount of paper we waste each year is staggering; the UK consumes around 12.4 million tonnes of paper each year, and approximately 60-80% of all office waste is made up of paper, according to Envirowise. Paper invoicing significantly contributes to the UK’s office waste. Each invoice takes an average of 3 sheets of paper, which adds up to a lot of waste when the amount of daily transactions is taken into account.

Furthermore, the global impact of wasted paper is a serious concern. According to recent statistics, within 15 years some 20% of Africa’s forests will be gone. The World Conservation Union’s Red List has said that more than 12,000 species (out of 40,000 assessed) face the risk of extinction. This amounts to 1 bird species in 8, 13% of all flowering species and 25% of all mammal species being affected.

Paper invoicing also raises the issue of storage and ensuring implications for the environment. e-Invoicing removes the need for physical storage space, by providing digital copies of each invoice. Without it, however, each invoice must be archived for several years before being disposed of.

Reduction in fuel and energy usage is another of the key benefits of e-Invoicing. e-Invoicing dramatically cuts fuel consumption, and by doing so helps conserve limited fuel resources. OB10 has calculated that in the last year our customers have saved enough fuel to run the average home for over 290 years and over 34,000 pounds of air pollutants through their adoption of e-Invoicing.

By eliminating the need for printed invoices, e-Invoicing is addressing environmental concerns by helping to save trees, conserve energy, and reduce waste at the same time.

But there are sound business reasons for adopting e-Invoicing too. When companies switch to e-Invoicing, accounts also become more of a streamlined and simplified process. As a result, with the reduced hassle of manual tasks, transactional costs are also noticeably reduced, typically by 60%. By replacing printed invoices with electronic ones, companies can reduce their impact on the environment every single day, and in a number of different ways.  e-Invoicing aims to help companies improve processing for themselves, but also to help them make a contribution in an effort to help the environment.

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: The true environmental cost of invoicing.

Any business or organization generating high volumes of business communication for their customer base such as financial institutions, insurance companies, utilities, telcos, hospitals, or government agencies, has a critical need to disseminate the most up-to-date information quickly and accurately to end users. However, if a law is changed or terms/conditions are revised and the material reflecting these changes is either inaccurate or not distributed in a timely manner, an institution leaves itself vulnerable to potentially massive fines for non-compliance or even litigation.

Additionally, business and marketing users are pressed hard to keep up with shorter product lifecycles, rapidly shifting consumer behavior and new channels of customer communication. Yet too often their dependency on IT can make simple text or layout changes for marketing messages, legal disclaimers, logos, or new contract templates a matter of months and finally outvalue the potential gains. A common approach to overcome this dilemma is to decentralize document composition using standard office tools or island solutions but this again creates issues with compliance and CI and increased time-to-market and usually turns out to be even more inefficient and costlier.

The ideal solution would therefore unleash the power of multi-channel communications, reduce time-to-market, enable document reuse, and enforce compliance while business and marketing users retain control over their documents and reduce their dependency on IT.

The Papyrus Platform from ISIS Papyrus provides the ability to automatically close the communications loop across all channels and to deliver personalized communications, integrated marketing campaigns, TransPromo campaigns, and structured ad-hoc communication for increased customer retention while achieving full compliance through process-embedded regulation and audit control.

Watch the ISIS Papyrus presentation on video

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: E-Documents: Cost savings and simplified compliance bij ISIS Papyrus.

OB10’s e-Invoicing network assists companies of all sizes in avoiding the use of vast amounts of paper each year by eliminating the need for paper invoices. The network helps to simplify and streamline the invoice-to-pay process by taking invoice data from a supplier’s billing system and sending it to their customer’s accounting system – removing the need to print, post, process, manually key-in, store and then finally dispose of paper invoices.

The Green Apple Award is run by the Green Organisation, an independent non-profit,
non-political group supported by the Environment Agency and the Chartered Institute of
Environmental Health. The awards are presented to companies that understand the
business advantages of creating a green working environment as well as those that
have reaped the benefits that can be had from environmental best practice.

Stefan Foryszewski, SVP Business and Product Development, OB10, commented:

To win this prestigious award for the fourth consecutive year is a great achievement for OB10. The fact that the environmental benefits of e-Invoicing are being continually recognised allows organisations to examine the true impact that paper-intensive processes have – not only on their business – but also on the environment. We understand that the cost benefits of the network are significant, however with businesses constantly looking for new ways to be ethical, the environmental factor is also an essential part of the decision making process.

www.ob10.com

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: OB10 wins its fourth consecutive Green Apple Award.

Email usage continues to increase globally. Although growth rates vary from region to region, this increase goes hand in hand with the increased use of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Nielsen published a study which found that consumers of social media were also the highest consumers of email (see the industry trends banner which clearly illustrates this point). In the United States, email usage grew by 21% in 2009 and social media by 31% during the same period.

Billing portals continue to deliver poor ROI

“It would seem logical that people would also visit more web portals if they continue to increase their time spent on social networking sites,” says Nicola Els, Head of eBilling at Striata.

Web portals can provide a customer with a wealth of information that enables online analysis of billing, payment, historical information such as previous month’s bills and self service options. “The fundamental problem with accessing this kind of information online is the initial registration process required, along with the need to enter a username and password each time you visit the portal,” continues Els. “One or two portals seem manageable, but once you translate all of your monthly bills to portals you end up with a large amount of URL’s, usernames, passwords and navigations on each site to wade through – not to mention remembering to view these bills each month. This is one of the compelling reasons why companies do not achieve a ROI when trying to convert paper based customers to portal registrants.”

Email delivery drives faster payment

How can this process be simplified, yet still provide value for the customer and how can the supplier drive faster payments and improve cash flow?

According to Els it is important to remember that people are inherently lazy and tend to react better to information that is pushed to them. Emailing an interactive eBill attachment to a customer and enabling them to view, sort, analyze, query and submit payment from within this secure email attachment is first prize. All required action can be performed from within the bill, thereby retaining the customers attention and making the call to action i.e. payment, available in one click.

Supporters of portal billing argue that the majority of email sent to inboxes is spam yet they email bill notifications to their users. Recently Symantec released statistics indicating that 92% of email is spam. However spam filters are catching 90% of this leaving very little in the inbox. As inboxes become more intelligent, as in the case of Gmail’s priority inbox, spam email communications are now being pushed to the bottom of the queue. Furthermore, ISP’s are continually improving their criteria regulating what mail is allowed to land in the consumer’s inbox, before the inbox even starts it’s intelligent (algorithm driven) work.

“Sending bulk communications like eBills from supplier to customer is not a simple job, there is much to be considered regarding deliverability and authentication. Striata has the necessary specialists and technology to cater for these requirements. We believe that every message counts and are able to boast high delivery rates that ensure our client’s emails penetrate their customer’s inbox,” says Els.

Increase your email reach through social media

Interactivity on marketing communications has continued to increase with the introduction of social media sharing options on these emails. GetResponse’s E-mail marketing and social media integration report suggests that this is a worthwhile tactic for increasing email reach. The study of 500 million emails showed that including three or more social sharing icons increased average click-through rates from 7.2 per cent to 11.2 per cent.

Even with alleged high spam rates many well known brands across industries such as banking and finance, telecommunications, utilities and insurance continue to send email communications, in the form of marketing and statements, to their customers. This is an obvious translation that email is still being read and continues to provide a valuable channel of communication to the customer and this is unlikely to change in the near future as they continue to enjoy the interactivity available on these communications.

www.striata.com

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Why email is still the strongest medium for online billing.

Ricoh Europe, a specialist in office solutions, managed document services and production printing today announced the launch of Ricoh intelligent invoicing (i-invoicing) – a Document Process Outsourcing service that allows customers to outsource the receipt and production of all invoices to Ricoh.

The migration from paper to electronic invoicing takes place at the customer’s own pace and frees up both time and resources allowing businesses to focus on their core competencies while realising savings of 70-90 per cent.*

European businesses can achieve significant savings by switching their invoicing processing to electronic. With Ricoh’s i-invoicing service the whole invoicing process is outsourced leaving companies to focus on their core business. This leads to productivity gains, enhanced customer experience and improved business performance.

Ricoh i-invoicing takes e-invoicing a step further by providing customers with a complete service, not just a software solution. By mapping a customer’s current processes, developing a transition plan and implementing a service delivery platform, Ricoh steps in to completely manage the invoicing process allowing businesses to make better use of their human resources. The solution is both flexible and entirely scalable allowing migration to take place at the customer’s own pace. Customers do not need to invest in equipment to implement Ricoh i-invoicing and can therefore avoid upfront technical costs and ongoing service fees.

“Ricoh i-invoicing offers more than an e-invoicing software solution to customers. It offers a full, end-to-end service, looking after a company’s invoicing processes, saving them time and money. Because it can include a mixture of hard copy and electronic invoicing, the service makes full use of Ricoh’s strengths, both in print and IT services. The offering also facilitates a seamless transition to e-invoicing, from initial consultation to customer accounts receivable education,” says Martin Hurley, Vice President and General Manager, Outsourcing Services, Ricoh Europe. “With Ricoh’s unparalleled experience in knowledge management, our global footprint and ISO certification, customers can have the peace of mind that they are working with a trusted business partner.”

Ricoh Europe already processes millions of invoices a year for its customers, who have all benefited from the Ricoh i-invoicing consultative approach and blended electronic and paper invoicing model. This includes invoices from a leading global sportswear manufacturer. Sending out 4.5 million invoices on paper each year, the company’s annual invoicing process added up to €4 million. Now, using Ricoh i-invoicing, the customer’s target is to migrate 80 percent of its invoices away from paper, a goal which will result in an annual saving of €3 million. In addition, the migration will contribute to a reduction in paper usage, which will further contribute to the company’s overall sustainability goals.

Ricoh i-invoicing will be available in France, the Netherlands and the UK from 1 October 2010, and in Belgium, Germany and Spain in January 2011. For more information, visit www.ricoh-europe.com/i-invoicing.

* ‘Use Supplier E-Invoicing to Help Optimize Operating Costs’, Gartner, 2009

www.ricoh-europe.com

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Ricoh Europe launches intelligent invoicing.

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

Click here for the apps

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Get Paid: 23 useful invoicing applications.

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 article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: OB10 launches environmental 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

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: UK E-Invoicing and E-Billing Market Study – new market report and analysis released.

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

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Sterling Commerce Savings Calculator outcome of Forrester study.

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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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.

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Basware introduces services for accounts receivable processes.

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 article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Survey: companies risk fines for non-compliance with cross-border invoicing regulation.

The use of eBilling has been promoted for at least the past ten years. Why isn’t it more popular than it is at this moment?
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I had a most frustrating experience today with eBilling. I had forgotten to pay my son’s phone bill of March. The simple reason for forgetting it was, that I didn’t notice it in the service providers eBilling portal. They usually send me an email to inform me of a new bill but this time the notice failed. Now I will have to pay the bill plus an extra fee for the reminder. Not acceptable.
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So what then is wrong with the current systems? First, the technology doesn’t seem to be ripe enough for eBilling. At least not with all solutions I have been using. Second, the process of eBilling hasn’t been thought of properly. I am currently using three portals to handle my payments. That is two too much. Ideally I would handle all my payments in my bank’s portal. Now I will have to go to two other portals and go to my bank’s portal anyway for the actual financial transaction.

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.

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: “Why website ebilling will never result in widespread paper suppression”.

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

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: High-Touch invoicing poses a serious threat to finance.

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

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: OB10 helps Tesco to eliminate paper invoicing.

Based on a Commission proposal from 2007 the European Union set itself an ambitious target of cutting administrative costs imposed by EU legislation by 25% by 2012.
Today the Commission publishes an overview of progress to date and sectoral reduction plans for 13 priority areas.

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.

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Proposals European Commission could reduce administrative burden.

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Belgium: E-invoicing can save companies billions.

The paper looks at the diffusion of electronic invoices across Europe. It argues in particular that the full benefits of e-invoicing come from a streamlined billing process – not by sending or receiving the bill as such.

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

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Research Deutsche Bank: Chasing Paper.

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.

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: OB10 helps overcome top 7 barriers.

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.

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Lufthansa AG Switches to Paperless Invoices with OB10.

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.”

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Increased stake in Anachron illustrates ING’s vision for the future.

Basware Connectivity services include Basware Scan and Capture, a completely outsourced scanning service that reduces the manual burden on internal departments and enables buyers to receive all their invoices in electronic format. To encourage suppliers to start sending invoices electronically, Basware offers the buyers an outsourced supplier activation service.

Basware Business Transactions, a monitored transfer and conversion service, supports the integrated exchange of e-invoices and purchase messages, enabling faster processing and improving accuracy.

Basware Supplier Portal completes the services, allowing buyers and suppliers to upload or download purchasing related documents and complete transactions, such as submitting an invoice, online.

The new services complete Basware’s existing purchase to pay offering, allowing customers to further enhance process automation by including their business partners as part of their accounts receivable, accounts payable and procurement functions. With the Basware Connectivity services, companies gain visibility to an audit trail that can be traced from order to goods delivery and invoice. The services generate savings in time and resources, by increasing accuracy in order based deliveries as well as data quality of invoices. Thanks to reduced invoice processing times, buyers are able to negotiate cash discounts, prevent late payment fees and improve working capital management. In turn, suppliers are able to secure invoice delivery via the Basware Business Transactions platform and gain competitive advantage by offering an environmentally friendly and accurate way of invoicing, as well as providing more timely and efficient customer service.

According to Forrester Research reports by Duncan Jones, the clear, demonstrable benefits, such as operational savings and error reduction, and the large, available market for automation of purchase to pay processes continue to drive market growth, particularly with the prevailing economic pressures on businesses and their supply chains. Companies see their current inefficient, error-prone invoice-to-pay (I2P) processes as an opportunity for rapid savings through judicious use of technology, but are unsure where to start. Best practice research from Forrester highlights that embarking on this journey, it is important to work with cross-functional stakeholders within the company, strive for 100% straight through processing, as well as looking to maximize supplier participation.

Basware Connectivity services are offered without any need to implement or maintain the solution in a customer’s IT environment. This reduces claims on internal IT resources, lowers the total cost of ownership and above all, lets organizations start communicating electronically with their business partners quickly, regardless of their size or current purchase to pay processes.

“With our Basware Connectivity services, we are the first to able to deliver all purchase to pay related documents through one solution. We are making this far simpler for our customers by managing the process for them both internally and externally,” said Esa Tihila, SVP, Basware Global Operations. “By offering different services for companies at different stages in their purchase to pay journey, we will accelerate the process of enabling more transactions to take place globally.”

Over 3,500 organizations are currently integrated to the Basware Business Transactions platform through the Basware Connectivity services. Basware has over 150,000 suppliers transacting electronically through its platform and processes over 8 million invoices across its network annually. With the launch of Basware Connectivity services, the goal is to increase this exponentially and allow more suppliers and buyers to build better transactional relationships both at home and overseas.

“We decided to make a strategic move to e-invoicing already in 2002. Our goal is to expand e-invoicing as much as possible, both in Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable processes,” says Kari Littunen, President, Shared Services at Metso, an early Basware Connectivity customer. “Our strategy is to have one technical partner, which enables a controlled way of exchanging messages and information. With Basware Connectivity services we are able to reach all our business partners through one single solution.”

www.basware.com

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Basware launches connectivity services to accelerate Purchase to Pay process automation.

In 2008, roughly 1 million European businesses and 23 million consumers exchanged one billion electronic invoices. Every day in 2009, 1,200 businesses and 11,000 consumers are expected to become new E-Invoicing users. Owing to the attractiveness of this market, around 350 service providers and another 150 application providers are offering their solutions and services.

This purpose of this report is to support invoice issuers and recipients wishing to replace expensive paper based invoice management. It gives all the relevant information on the larger European markets and helps by focusing on the most promising solutions. The report not only provides facts, but also qualitative views, evaluation and details about the products offered by many providers.

The document costs 590 Euro, but a table of contents and download preview are free available online:

www.expp-summit.com/marketreport.htm

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: E-Invoicing / E-Billing in Europe – Taking the next step towards optimised processes.

To make the whole invoice process completely paperless, OB10 also archives invoices electronically, providing access for both suppliers and buyers via the OB10 Portal. Conducting the invoicing process in this way saves vast amounts of paper (as well as postage, logistics, transportation, etc. for delivering invoices) and helps the finance function to become more environmentally compliant.

The award is run by the Green Organisation, an independent non-profit, non-political group supported by the Environment Agency and the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health. Green Apple Awards are presented to Companies that have recognised the benefits that can be gained from environmental best practice, and also realise the business benefits of being green. Jamie Gunn, CEO, OB10, commented, “We are delighted to receive this Green Apple award for the second year running from the Green Organisation. It’s great news that the environmental benefits of e-Invoicing are being recognised. Businesses need to be fully aware of the damaging consequences of paper invoices. It is not only the cost and efficiency savings that can be made, but with the amount of paper invoices in circulation, in Europe alone – that equates to 763 housand tons of paper or almost 13 million trees, not including the fuel and landfill space that is also saved.”

In the past year alone, OB10 has electronically processed more than four million transactions on behalf of its global customer base, the equivalent of 85 tons. Using standard industry calculations1, that saving represents 1,443 trees which have been spared, as well as enough fuel to run 100 cars for over 1,000 miles, fuel a home for 42 years and 208 cubic metres of landfill space. With OB10’s year-on-year global growth, and the increasing acceptance of electronic invoicing, the environmental savings are set to increase even further. To put it into context, the 1,443 trees that OB10 saved last year could have absorbed up to 231,485 kilograms of Co2 in just one year, and released enough oxygen back into the atmosphere to support a staggering 2,886 human beings.

About OB10
OB10  is the leading global B2B e-Invoicing network. OB10 simplifies and streamlines the complex invoice-to-pay processes. Neither client organisations 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 thana year if the programme 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 enrolment, each new customer’s suppliers are supported by an implementation services team responsible for getting them up and running on the OB10 network. Customers include: Agilent Technologies, Barclays, BP, Cargill, DHL, DSG International, Eli Lilly & Company, Fisher Scientific, General Motors, GlaxoSmithKline, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Kellogg’s, Logica, Lufthansa, Mohawk Industries, Norwich Union, SaraLee, Shaw Industries and Steria.

Source: www.OB10.com

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: OB10 awarded a Green Apple Award.

Atos Origin will contribute significantly to Océ’s transition to a central European IT organization, which will make it easier and less expensive to provide support to its operating companies and result in greater flexibility at lower cost.

“Outsourcing the IT support for our European sales companies helps us improve our operational processes. The move is part of our previously announced cost savings program, in which 950 job positions are being eliminated. In so doing we will realize € 130 million in savings in 2008 and 2009,” said Jan Dix, member of the Océ Board of Executive Directors, responsible for IT. By outsourcing its IT services, a total of 65 Océ staff will transfer to Atos Origin and an additional 20 jobs disappear due to attrition, resulting in a reduction of 85 IT job positions at Océ.

Atos Origin will be responsible for the management of over 6,000 workplaces and the management of current local applications in Océ’s sales companies in 16 European countries. Other services that Atos Origin offers involve network, server and LAN management, and the management of Océ’s telephone network in Europe.

Continuity and flexibility
“In Europe, Atos Origin has a proven track record in outsourcing and in implementing this kind of IT project”, said Wilfred de Herder, CIO at Océ. “This agreement contributes to strengthening our market position, achieving cost reductions, and improving flexibility. Atos Origin offers our IT staff a solid perspective. All 65 are highly qualified specialists who will be employed in a challenging and professional environment at Atos Origin.”

“This agreement with Océ enables Atos Origin to significantly strengthen its position on the European outsourcing market and to further establish our leading position in the high-tech market”, says Rob Pols, CEO at Atos Origin in The Netherlands. “The agreement offers an excellent opportunity to demonstrate that we have the necessary expertise and experience to manage and implement large and complex international IT projects.”

About Océ
Océ is one of the world’s leading providers of document management and printing for professionals. The broad Océ offering includes office printing and copying systems, high speed digital production printers and wide format printing systems for both technical documentation and color display graphics. Océ is also a foremost supplier of document management outsourcing. Many of the world’s Fortune 500 companies and leading commercial printers are Océ customers. The company was founded in 1877. With headquarters in Venlo, the Netherlands, Océ is active in over 90 countries and employs some 24,000 people worldwide. Total revenues in 2007 amounted to € 3.1 billion. Océ is listed on Euronext in Amsterdam. For more information on Océ, visit the corporate website: www.oce.com.

About Atos Origin
Atos Origin is an international information technology services company. Its business is turning client vision into results through the application of consulting, systems integration and managed operations. The company’s annual revenues are EUR 5,8 billion and it employs over 50,000 people in 40 countries. Atos Origin is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic Games and has a client base of international blue-chip companies across all sectors. Atos Origin is quoted on the Paris Eurolist Market and trades as Atos Origin, Atos Worldline and Atos Consulting.

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Océ outsources IT in Europe to Atos Origin.

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Survey shows that German users are not yet familiar with e-invoices.

Accountis Ltd, a division of Fundtech (NASDAQ: FNDT) and leading global provider of secure financial document exchange and payment systems, has been working with DHL for two years developing their e-Billing capabilities, and will support their expansion into most major European territories by the end of this year.

Environment
The environmental benefits of e-Billing were high on the agenda when DHL launched the service for customers in Belgium in 2007. Brian Thumwood, DHL’s e-Billing manger for Europe said “The success of our e-Billing project has already delivered significant environmental savings but this is a drop in the ocean compared to what we intend to achieve in the near future. We are currently experiencing a 30% increase in the number of e-invoices sent through the system each month, proving that organisations across Europe are ready and able to embrace this greener technology.”

Brian Thumwood continues, “Protecting the environment is very important to DHL and e-Billing plays an significant role in our organisation’s social responsibility and sustainability plan. The marketing strap line for this project is “e-Billing – loved by trees” since we know that this issue really matters to our customers too. Valuable resources including paper, ink, electricity and fuel are all consumed unnecessarily in the paper invoicing process every day. We want to play our part in reducing this waste and the detrimental impact it is having on our planet.”

DHL aims to improve the carbon efficiency of its own as well as its subcontracted services by 30% by 2020 and in addition is constantly expanding its climate-friendly services for customers.

Greener processes
Peter Radcliffe, Executive Chairman, Accountis, said: “Accountis enables organisations like DHL to achieve their green objectives by imply implementing a more sustainable technology. The paper invoicing process consumes vast quantities of energy and produces huge volumes of waste which is unacceptable in this day and age, especially when an alternative is readily available. Paper delivery notes, purchase orders, statements, remittances and other related documents can all be taken online using our system. We are delighted that more and more companies across Europe are switching to a greener, faster and more efficient invoicing process.”

1) Calculated using figures from ‘EBA: E-Invoicing 2008′
2) Calculated using latest industry estimates of approximately 1 invoice = 100g C02 footprint

Source: www.accountis.com

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: DHL aims to cut paper invoices by a third with Accountis.

The study points out that SEPA compliance has exerted a high toll on financial institutions, all the more so since SEPA provisions actually cut back on banks’ payment revenues by stipulating that cross-border payment fee levels should match those of domestic transactions fees. As a result, the study claims, banks need to come up with alternate strategies to compensate for lost payment revenues. The answer, the research points out, could lie in the so-called ‘value-added’ services such as cross-border electronic invoicing and supply chain financing.

Electronic invoicing comes with a series of benefits ranging from process savings to lower fraud and credit risks, faster payments and improved cash flow, lower IT costs due to standardised invoicing, payments and account interfaces and higher productivity. As a result, the study points out that e-invoicing could hold the key to a higher degree of corporate profitability within SEPA and pave the way for another profit-generating value-added service, namely supply chain automation. The latter renders banks more aware of their customers’ own financial processes and cash flows, allowing them to extend credit facilities to their corporate customers and build additional revenues.

The research was conducted by IT service provider TietoEnator.

Source: Tietoenator

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Study: E-invoicing and supply chain financing to boost bank revenues after SEPA.

But there are two factors at work today that are making paper-free operations (e-invoicing) much more feasible:

• The cost of the necessary technology is decreasing
• Companies’ interests in cutting costs, with suitable ROI, is increasing

The payoff is handsome, according to a recent Aberdeen study.

Best-in-class purchasing operations realized these benefits:

• 91% savings in processing invoices
• 46% trimmed from process cycle time
• 12% drop in late payments, and
• 30% decrease in time responding to inquiries

Need some ammo to make your case with the execs?

There’s a combination of “out with the bad, in with the good” examples that’ll help draw a clear picture of the ROI that can be gained from making steps further into electronic payment processing.

Companies that putting electronic payment systems into practice are reporting great improvements in these common problems:

• Long billing cycles. Paper creeps through the mail and through A/P and A/R, often adding up to days or even weeks. That’s without even factoring in lost documents, filing errors, etc.
• Fraud. Paper documents are much easier to alter or substitute. Changes in electronic billing documents leave a trail.
• Visibility. Need to know the status of a transaction? Good luck if it’s on paper. Electronically, it’s just a couple of button punches away.
• Accessibility. One copy of paperwork, one person can use it. What if someone else needs to see it? If it’s paper, it means making copies — which opens the door to problems. If it’s available electronically, everyone can see it at once.
• Storage. Look at the pile of paper you generate every week, and where you have to store it. Ouch. Electronic documents are stored on top of your desk, without the mess.
• Going green. You’ll also do the world a favor by reducing the amount of paper your company consumes.

Source: Procurement Alert

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: e-Invoicing: Now’s the time to jump in.

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%.

Businesses that want to take advantage of e-invoicing can do it themselves, use an e-invoicing service provider or work with their banks.

Stefan Foryszewski, senior vice-president at e-invoicing service provider OB10, says businesses are looking at e-invoicing but only “the more enlightened ones.”

“The market is still fairly immature but awareness is beginning to grow,” he says.

Forysewski advises businesses moving to e-invoicing to ensure that their enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are compatible with the system they chose. They must ensure the system they chose can be easily integrated with all suppliers. And they must ensure they comply with the taxation laws in the different regions they receive invoices from.

Building an e-invoicing system is challenging for companies to do on their own and the capital investment required may be hard to justify as the economy slows.

DHL began rolling out an electronic invoicing and payment system from Accountis in July last year. The project aims to save millions of pounds across Europe by reducing billing costs by 15%.

Brian Thumwood, e-billing programme manager at DHL, says the company chose a third-party supplier to avoid the risks of building its own system. “We looked at doing it ourselves but the complexities associated with the legal structure in different countries and the technology made us work with a supplier.”

Businesses only need minimal technology in place to use a third-party service, such as dedicated servers, a connection to the e-invoicing service, and the use of workflow systems.

Peter Ratcliffe chairman of Accountis points out that many e-invoicing suppliers have been bought up by larger businesses which means their software is no longer commercially available. For example, E-invoicing software providers Harbor Payments and Xign were acquired by American Express and JP Morgan respectively in 2007. As a result, companies that set up their own e-invoicing services would have to write their own software, he says.

Banks are using e-invoicing service providers to create their own services. Abbey launched a corporate e-invoicing service in July last year in partnership with e-invoicing network provider OB10, as part of a service to offer finance to supply chains.

Tom Crowe, director of sales and delivery financial supply chain solutions at Abbey Corporate Banking, says take up of e-invoicing is slow because it is a new concept in the UK.

But he said that businesses will take it up because of the savings that can be made. “Anything they can do to make businesses more efficient they are keen to look at particularly in a period of economic uncertainty,” he says.

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has announced that the first customers of its e-invoicing system, provided by Accountis are going live this month.

In the current economic climate an 80% reduction in the cost of a paper invoice will be attractive to business managers attempting to cut unnecessary costs. IT departments must, however, decide how they are going to implement e-invoicing to maximise the return on investment.

What is E-invoicing?

E-invoicing is an alternative to Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) as a method of dealing with supply payments electronically. It also helps get the best out of ERP systems by automatically putting more accurate information into the systems.

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.

EDI is a point-to-point computer connection between a business and a supplier which uses a network provider to process transactions. Large businesses use this method to connect with their major suppliers.

Source: Computerweekly

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: E-invoicing could help firms through recession.