European Commission e-Invoicing expert group report

The European Commission has published the report of the expert group on e-Invoicing.

Green, CSR and e-Invoicing

The world leaders will meet in a few weeks time to discuss global plans to address climate change. http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=2599

What is the relevance to e-Invoicing?  Here are a few observations….

The United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) has just approved the Cross Industry Invoice (CII) Version 2

UN/CEFACT has approved and released the next version of the cross industry invoice standard, details and links are here …

The European Commission still has e-Invoicing high on the agenda

The European Commission issued a further press release confirming their commitment to easing the ‘red tape’ burdens on industry and highlights the new VAT proposals with regard to electronic invoicing.

UK Postal Services go on strike

Amid government and management requirements for modernisation and restructuring, unbelievably, UK Postal workers have again voted to go on strike and the first national postal strike for two years will start today.

This is bad for business.

Kofax acquires 170 Systems

Kofax have acquired 170 Systems, Inc., a provider of financial process automation software.

This seems to be a good move for Kofax, giving them the opportunity to offer a more rounded solution as well as competing with Readsoft who offer similar services from their acquisition of Ebydos a few years back.

While these solutions are focussed on OCR data capture, both 170 Systems and Ebydos (Readsoft) applications are well suited to processing electronic invoices through the workflow and cockpit components.

Both management and the Board of Kofax believe the acquisition, worth $32.9 million, will position the company for leadership in the rapidly growing invoice processing market.

OB10 grows by 40% and raises capital

OB10 has concluded a rights issue at the same time as increasing sales by 40% and breaking even.

More details are available at OB10.com

European legislation regarding e-Invoicing and the EC e-Invoicing Expert Group

In 2008 the European Commission established the Expert Group for Electronic Invoicing.

This group was established with the purpose of extending the use of e-Invoicing in Europe; the Commission recognised that there are substantial savings for European businesses in moving to e-Invoicing and has stated that savings are potentially €238bn (over six years) in the business-to-business marketplace and €30-40bn in the business-to-consumer arena.

The expert group has essentially been looking at three key areas
• The legal environment
• Networks and standards
• Business requirements

The expert group has acknowledged that the legal environment is difficult, there are different and complex rules and regulations surrounding e-Invoicing and these rules vary from country to country. In particular, the legislation is difficult for SME’s. Most (but not all of these rules) are associated with VAT (Value Added Tax).
The body that is responsible for tax is the Taxation and Customs Union Directorate-General or TAXUD, and the Expert Group is working closely with this group.

Earlier this year TAXUD made a proposal to amend the European VAT legislation and there are certain proposed changes relative to e-Invoicing.

The European Commission fights late payments

Electronic invoices help corporations and public sector bodies to pay their suppliers on time, invoices are delivered in minutes instead of days and they are not lost in the post. Not only are invoices delivered quicker; because the data is electronic and in many cases uploaded directly to accounts payables systems, the approval process can be dramatically shortened.

Often an electronic invoice can remove 10-12 days from the delivery and processing cycle. As the processing cycle is reduced, there is a much better chance that the invoice can be paid on time or to terms. The process for dealing with paper invoices is often too long and cumbersome to allow for payments to be made in 30 days.

One of our customers at OB10 has quoted, “The average e-invoice transmission time from supplier to Buyer (invoice) approval is 2 days versus 25 days for paper invoices. The level of automatic processing of e-invoices has reached 75% versus 10.2 % only for paper”.

The European Commission has recently announced that it is seeking to tackle late payments in legislation, particularly for SME’s. It will be interesting to see how many public sector bodies switch to e-Invoicing just so that they can pay on time (and meet the proposed rules without incurring additional costs) Corporations must surely follow suit ………

OCR vs electronic invoicing for Accounts Payable

Submitted by Thayer Stewart
When building a house, a carpenter would not use a hammer (which is a great tool) to insert a screw. There is a much more appropriate tool – a screwdriver. Similarly, OCR is a great technology, just not for Accounts Payable.

Insurance companies, financial institutions and the public sector have all applied OCR with some success to automate the capture of standard forms. Unfortunately, an invoice is not a standard form and efforts to read unstructured data with OCR technology just doesn’t work effectively.