It was there all along the ULTIMATE instrument to get the entire world fired up for e-billing, e-invoicing or online invoicing for that matter. It’s not trying to create yet another standard. Not equal treatment of e-invoices and paper invoices. Nor international interoperability.
E-invoicing heaven
All those are not going to bring us to the e-invoicing heavens. That place where the leafs of the trees consists of billions and billions Dollars, Yen, Euro and Yuan notes. Where the birds thank you for saving the environment and where people, animals and plants can communicate with each other thanks to a UML: Universal Mammal Language.
So what is it?
So what is it that delivers us e-invoicing heaven? It is the unforeseen and the obvious: stamps. Stamps, just plain old stamps. To be more specific: the pricing of stamps. We found out that there is a more than coincidental correlation between the price of a stamp and the adoption level of electronic invoices:
Step 1: Take a look at these stamp prices (courtesy of DHL)
Step 2: Compare this table with those in our post “Is your Country a Digitization Hero or Laggard?”
Conclusion
Start increasing the stamp pricing for domestic and –especially- cross border letters and the e-invoicing uptake will ramp off.
Cláudia Wada on