Thurrock Council near London hopes that the move to e-invoicing and invoice processing will substantial savings of around £900,000 in 2014 alone.
The local authority processed almost 70,000 purchase invoices in 2012/13 and nearly two-thirds of these invoices were under £500, representing less than 5 per cent of the council’s spending with suppliers. In the meantime the smallest invoice requires as much processing time as one for a million-pound project.
In the new system purchase orders and invoices are generated in one place online, ending the need to re-input details and minimising the risk of invoices being lost or keystroke errors delaying payment.
So far 50 suppliers have signed up to the system. Using it has been mandatory for all new contracts since April 2014, and it is expected that within two to three years around 60 per cent of invoices will be paperless.
It is unclear however whether the £900,000 savings are based on 100 per cent adoption of e-invoicing by all suppliers.
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