Itella, an e-invoicing service provider, did study on comparative surveys of 9 037 consumers and 4 765 invoice decision-makers from enterprises in 16 countries regarding sales and purchase invoices. This survey was executed in cooperation with Add Value Research Finland.
The survey can be downloaded here: http://eeiplatform.com/files/Itella-Information-survey-Invoicing-in-16-European-countries.pdf
This is are the observations of the 2010 Itella survey:
1. Every second company in Europe sends and receives at least one electronic invoice a month. Correspondingly, over 40% of consumers receive at least one electronic invoice in the same time period. However, the share of electronic invoices remains below 30%, because paper invoices still dominate the invoicing markets.
2. There are big differences between countries. In general, Nordic and Baltic countries are the most digitalized, and Eastern Europe the least digitalized. Advanced infrastructure seems to have presented better prerequisites for adopting electronic invoices. Good examples of this are Denmark and Norway, where two thirds of consumers already receive invoices through the banks’ co-operative Internet bank service.
3. Surprisingly, email invoices are used more than fully electronic invoices, which include safety solutions and payment systems. The share of sent and received email invoices is almost 20% in European enterprises, but the share of fully electronic invoices is only about 10%.
4. Easily available email offers speed and flexibility, which is needed in daily business. Email invoicing needs no expensive and time consuming invoice system implementation. It can be the only electronic invoicing channel for small enterprises, but can also be used as a complement to fully electronic invoicing solutions in
any enterprise. The typical email invoice is delivered without an electronic signature, and it is possible to send parallel paper invoices for bookkeeping or a summary on paper for the tax authorities at the end of the year.
5. Less than 10% of enterprises use transition-phase hybrid solutions. Sales invoice data are sent for printing to an outside service provider mostly in Finland and Sweden, whereas in many other countries this service is not used at all. On the other hand, purchase invoices received on paper are scanned to become electronic for further processing and approval mostly in the Nordic countries, and least of all in Eastern Europe.
6. There is a strong conviction in the speedy digitalisation of invoicing in Nordic and Baltic enterprises. Trust in digitalisation of invoices has grown remarkably in the Nordic countries where comparable enterprise results from 2008 were available for this research. A slower digitalisation prognosis with continued reliance on paper invoices prevails in Eastern Europe and also to some extent in Austria and Germany.
7. The use of electronic invoices and willingness to increase their use grows as the number of invoices increases. This is easily understandable in the case of the high variance of invoice volumes between companies, but the same is also true for quite homogeneous consumers, of whom 92% receive 1–15 invoices a month.
8. At present, almost 75% of consumer invoices are on paper, but consumers are ready to accept that in two or three years’ time the proportion of paper invoices will have fallen to around 60%.
9. Digitalisation paths for invoices are country-specific. The Nordic countries are firmly changing to Internet bank reception of invoices. In the Baltic countries and Eastern Europe consumers are now changing to email reception. However, in Eastern Europe, Germany and the United Kingdom the high preference for paper invoices is likely to continue.
11. Payment of invoices through the Internet provides a natural platform for electronic reception, and those consumers already paying through the Internet are those most prepared to transfer to electronic invoicing. Nevertheless, only 30% of Internet bank invoice payers in Europe wish to transfer to net reception.
12. Around 35% of Internet bank payers believe that the email invoice is the best option for them, and even the paper invoice is considered just as good an alternative by another 35%. However, of those prepared to transfer to net reception, most prefer just Internet bank reception. Therefore, in the long run it seems that the main current will flow in the direction of Internet bank reception in spite of the fact that the path will be long and stony.
