The IATA Financial SIS (Simplified Interline Services) platform is an electronic invoicing solution facilitating the air transport industry’s billing and settlement activities by optimizing and reducing the cost of back-office processes, unifying invoicing standards and eliminating the need for paper documentation.
IATA reports that approximately 160 tonnes of invoices and supporting documents circulate among airlines each year to support the aviation industry’s interline billing and settlement processes. In addition, such largely paper-driven activities as invoicing and dispute handling involve substantial manual effort. SIS aims to eliminate unnecessary paperwork, mail charges and courier fees as well as mitigate the risks related to lost documents and internal paper handling thus offering annual cost savings of up to $700 million for the industry.
E-invoicing as a means for efficient e-procurement
“In today’s market carriers are always in search of ways to cut down expenses. Nevertheless, almost half of all the money the global aviation industry spends on maintenance services (which is $56.2 billion in 2013) is invested into spare parts. However, this number could be reduced if the relevant processes were properly optimised. Innovative IT solutions can considerably speed up the execution while reducing the number of such emergency situations as AOG,” says Zilvinas Sadauskas, the CEO of Locatory.com.
“Many of the maintenance-related delays are connected to the processes of finding and purchasing the necessary inventory. And then there are also hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of documentation management processes to consider.”
How electronic invoicing in the IATA SIS Platform works
Via SIS an operator can submit a single electronic billing file that then is converted into an invoice and a settlement file. This helps to avoid record duplication and improves efficiency by integrating a unified e-invoicing standard (IS-XML). The platform also enables the participant to choose from such options as automated invoice validation and offers a variety of other handy functions. As a result, it significantly reduces the need for manual labour and improves control over cash flows, as the data is being directly linked to the payable systems of airlines.
Jean Dupré on
If I understand the article then the title of this is wrong. It says that e-Invoicing saves 160 tons of paper and costs $700m and the inference is that is done by SIS. In the article it is clear that it is still paper and therefore not done by SIS. Please try to make your titles more correct. Thank you.
Hello Mark,
Thank you for your comment. We tried to make clear that the SIS platform currently already saves up 160 tons of paper and generates $700m in cost savings. Because no paper is being used. From that perspective, we believe the title to be correct.
The E-invoicing Platform team