This article was written by Esra Keçeci FIT Solutions’ Corporate Communications and Marketing Manager

With e-Transformation applications proceeding at full steam, now it is expected to be the Turkish health sector’s turn. The era of delivering paper invoices for the entire private hospitals, pharmacies, opticians and medical professionals issuing invoices to Social Security Institution has come to an end. Within the scope of the plan, more than 60 thousand taxpayers would be obligated to complete their applications probably as soon as January 1, 2018.

Now the health sector gets involved in the e-Transformation applications enabling the corporations to modernize and step into a new age related to digital transformation. The e-Invoice era is about to commence for 35 thousand pharmacies, 25 thousand opticians and healthcare and medical professionals operating within the sector. e-Invoice, against the nuisance of invoice printing and archiving, is planned to contribute to the environment and provide facilitation to healthcare sector.

The entire steps taken after e-Invoice, which has been obligatory since the year 2014 has a substantial place for digitisation and now a compulsory application is about to be imposed on organizations carrying out invoice process with the Social Security Institution. Organizations and enterprises carrying out invoicing process with Social Security Institution and providing services within the healthcare sector now issue their invoices on digital environment. For this application within the scope of obligation, it is rumoured for the paper invoice era to be finalized and come to an end as of January 1, 2018.

Things will get easier and trees will be saved

This transformation could yield substantial advantages and opportunities for the pharmacies, opticians and healthcare and medical professionals to be included within e-Invoice system. The healthcare sector, issuing millions of invoices annually, will experience and enjoy convenience and facility with the transition to e-Invoice. Thanks to e-Invoice, costs such as printing, enveloping, archiving, cargo and notarization will be reduced to a large extent and the enterprises will achieve substantial saving of time. As the entire invoices will be able to be issued and archived on digital environment, problems such as invoices becoming lost will be disappeared accordingly. Furthermore, as the paper usage will come to an end, it will contribute to the preservation of trees.

Koray Gültekin Bahar, CEO of FIT Solutions, leading the digitisation process since 1999, speaking of the process as, “the number of users practicing e-invoicing at the end of the year 2017 is anticipated to be 120 thousand. Together with the digitisation of healthcare organizations and enterprises, a 20% increase is aimed to occur in e-Invoice and e-Archive figures drafted annually and digitisation of 100 million pieces of paper invoices is intended accordingly. Thanks to e-Invoice, the nuisance of invoice printing and archiving comes to an end. The invoices transferred to digital environment are easily accessed whenever requested. The healthcare organizations and enterprises are expected to perform the transition to e-Archive on a voluntary basis to be able to issue invoices on electronic environment to other enterprises not using e-Invoicing. Thus, more than 4,100 trees will be saved.”

Fast-paced and hassle-free system not requiring an additional infrastructure

Infrastructure is not a prerequisite for e-Invoice transition. If an accounting software is already utilized in the organization, the e-Invoice system can be integrated to this software, otherwise, sector professionals can enter the invoices within the system by means of a username and password to be provided and transmit them online just like sending e-mails. As a matter of fact, if an e-Signature or financial seal is used then opting into the system within 30 minutes is ensured. Should the need arise to share the invoices transmitted with others; applications on mobile devices such as WhatsApp can also be used. By means of digitised invoices, collection problems related with paper invoices are removed and collections are expedited for the approved invoices.

Accurate and careful selection of the integrator for the services to be provided and software is of the essence during the accomplishment of this transition. Collaborating and working with integrators certified by the Revenue Administration are required to expeditiously and smoothly progress  through the e-invoice transition process.

Source: http://sgkfatura.com