To further extend its UK market presence, e-Docs UK will integrate the PaletteArena and Palette Online suites into its range of purchase-to-pay (P2P) automation and management solutions, enabling customers and clients to achieve significant cost-savings and efficiency gains. Lucy Beck, Sales Director for Palette in the UK said: “e-Docs UK is one of the UK’s most experienced and innovative providers of P2P solutions and I am delighted to welcome them on board as a partner. This partnership will extend the delivery of Palette’s innovative solutions to a wider range of companies and help build our presence in the UK market.“
Read MoreThis presentation is a shorter executive level version of a webinar that was recorded in May 2013. It provides some insights into some of the challenges faced by manufacturers who need to embrace the various e-invoicing regulations in different countries around the world.
The key focus regions are EMEA, Brazil and Mexico where eInvoicing regulations are starting to impact businesses in these regions. Please don’t forget to view the full length webinar which you can find here in the resources area of our website.
Within a few days the Spanish government will approve a draft bill on Electronic Invoicing and creation of the Accounting Record. Prior to publication of this draft bill, two of its principal guidelines have already been announced: (1) Mandatory use of electronic billing as of January 15, 2015 in invoices for sums over € 5.000 and (2) obligatory use of e-invoicing in “companies providing services of special financial importance”.
Interestingly, the new bill also revives 5 e-invoicing initiatives that originated from back in 2007. For instance: the general standards whereby bills in electronic format are to be accepted by the General State Administration and its dependent public bodies. But also the described the format in which these invoices should be issued (and under the name Facturae, laid down syntax and processing rules). And a central pickup point for invoices.
Today, most e-invoicing “ecosystems” and standards are local – either country based, service provider based, invoice sender/receiver based or de facto “standard” email- based. There has also been a lot of discussion around international/EU wide standardization, but not that much is happening in real life.
So, what is hindering the EU from just doing it? Itella Information strongly believes that European level e-invoicing doesn’t have to be a distant dream, however, in practical terms there are a few things that have to be in order to really make it happen: legislation, business model, interoperability, and last and perhaps actually the least challenging – technical standards. Listen to their story:
In the Port of Rotterdam each month one 20ft container worth of wastepaper is created by unnecessary paperwork. That is why the Rotterdam-based container terminals ECT, APMT and Uniport embarked a scheme to push their customers to use e-commerce interchange, rather than paperwork.
Dutch port community systems provider Portbase, also argues that all stakeholders within port communities benefit from intelligent services for simple and efficient information exchange. Between companies, and between the public and the private sector. Avoiding form entry mistakes, repeated data entry and paper waste.
Omega Pharma opted for the EDI outsourcing solution because it requires no hardware or software expenditure. There is no need to invest in EDI expertise, since Seeburger’s specialists handle implementation and management of the exchange process from start to finish.
Seeburger’s interface provides support for the various file types used by Omega Pharma, and automatically converts them into EDI format. This lets Omega Pharma exchange data – such as invoices, orders, and order confirmations – simply and efficiently with customers, including Macro B.V. and Albert Heijn. Since a single method of operation is used and data can be entered uniformly, Omega Pharma achieves both and maintenance efficiencies. The digital connections also eliminate the chances of error, yielding cost savings.
CRH (an international supplier of building materials) has decided to deploy EDI adapters by Seeburger. These adapters allow CRH to optimise its electronic data exchange with its customers. Considerable cost savings are also achieved, because all data is automatically converted and forwarded in the message format used by the specific customer. This minimises the number of manual invoicing processes and eliminates errors. This on its turn reinforces CRH’s relations with its customers and suppliers.
Added to which, users can track the status of each order via a web portal. This lends the process greater insight and transparency. Seeburger’s in-depth knowledge and expertise was pivotal to CRH’s selection of its EDI adapters. Its years of experience and leading position in the field of B2B integration made Seeburger the ideal partner for CRH.
The European Commission has issued a DRAFT directive on e-invoicing in public procurement. Accompanied by a EU communication setting out its vision for the full digitisation of the public procurement process (so-called ‘end-to-end e-procurement’), the Commission estimates that the adoption of e-invoicing in public procurement across the EU could generate savings. Savings of up to a lousy €2.3 billion.
Yes, a lousy €2.3 billion. Because that is what The Netherlands can save with e-invoicing alone. That said, the press release states that this draft directive proposes the establishment of a European e-invoicing standardwhich is expected to improve interoperability between different, mainly national, e-invoicing systems. It will also help boost the uptake of e-invoicing in Europe which remains very low, accounting for only 4-15% of all invoices exchanged.
The single market in Europe has made quite some progress since its start in 1992. However several barriers to achieve true unity in public service delivery still exit. E-SENS will address these barriers in order to improve interoperability in Europe, as well as increase mobility and competitiveness. In particular E-SENS is expected to:
• develop a common infrastructure for interoperable public services;
• enable higher interoperability between public administrations all over Europe;
• provide the foundation for the platform of e-Government “core services”;
• support the creation of the European digital single market.
Virgin Media is urging its customers to switch over to e-billing, on the basis that this simple step can save them £21 per year. Subscribers who receive their monthly bill online do not require a paper version, and this saves Virgin Media both time and money. Virgin Media is passing the savings back to its customers, providing they opt out of receiving a paper-based bill.
We believe that this is the way to go when switching to e-billing (B2C) or e-invoicing (B2B). In stead of suddenly charging your customers when they still want to keep receiving the paper invoices they were accustomed to. Just remember that your customers aren’t hereto help you cut costs, they are here to provide you with revenue.
