Electronic Invoicing

20 Jun Electronic Invoicing – The Mexican mandate is not just a matter for the Mexicans

The electronic invoice goings on in Mexico have, understandably, attracted a great deal of attention. While nations like the US and the UK continue to sit on the fence, the Mexicans are setting the pace. But this isn’t just a matter for the Mexicans. And it’s not just Latin America that needs to keep a watchful eye on what’s going on as I realized when I spoke to Christian Lanng, CEO of Tradeshift and Steve Sprague, VP Product Marketing and Strategy for Invoiceware International. I spoke to Christian and Steve shortly after they announced a strategic alliance in May. The press releases that go out alongside these announcements are often dry and lacking detail so I was eager to hear what was so special about the Tradeshift and Invoiceware partnership and to get some insight from the people on the ground.

19 Jun Electronic invoicing and concerns about the Mexican mandate

It was announced a few weeks ago that the Mexican Government has given businesses just 6 months to prepare for a major legislative change that will directly affect hundreds of thousands of small and medium sized businesses. And it’s not a trivial change. If businesses want to get paid for goods and services they supply, they’ll need to ensure that they generate invoices correctly and in accordance with the new rules. It’s not optional. There’ll be no excuses. It seems like a good idea to insist on the use of electronic invoices. It’s a mandate for common sense. The Mexican Government is embracing the digital age and at the same time implementing a zero tolerance approach to business taxes. But the rate of change they are imposing could create chaos as businesses fail to meet the deadline.

12 Jun Mexico’s E-invoicing mandate shows how far we have come since EasyTrade

I’ve watched what Mexico is doing with great interest. The people behind the e-invoice mandate in Mexico are courageous and ambitious but they’re not the first to tackle such a challenge. Some time ago I chatted to Christian Lanng, CEO of Tradeshift, about his experience in Denmark and it struck me that there could be some interesting insights from his experience in developing the Danish mandated solution EasyTrade. So I asked him. To what extent, if any, I wondered, is Mexico treading in Denmark’s footsteps?

05 Jun OB10’s US success points to further growth in supplier networks

OB10 operation in the United States, OB10 have just posted record revenues in their financial year just closed. Figures for year ending April 30, 2013 show revenues generated from new buyer customers increased by 56% and the number of new suppliers on the network increased by 46% over the previous year. OB10 believe that the rise in new buyers and suppliers demonstrates that US corporations continue to seek efficiencies, streamline business processes, and improve their use of cash. That hardly surprising. We think that it's further evidence to support the view that e-invoicing is becoming embedded proven best practice in P2P.

03 Jun e-invoicing to be made compulsory in Italy

Not announced formally and officially yet but it seems that the decree is written. Italy will introduce mandatory electronic invoicing in 2014. The formal announcement is expected soon. When Brazil and Mexico embarked on their compulsory electronic invoicing agenda, I was not alone in wondering whether their plans were a little too ambitious. A few years on and I still wonder whether they’re a bit too ambitious but if there’s one thing we’ve learned, those plans aren’t changing. Mandatory e-invoicing is embedded in Latin America and the authorities are demonstrating the resolve and tenacity required to drive this significant change through. And this is what comes to mind when I heard the news that Italy is now embarking on a plan to eliminate paper invoices in public sector by 2015. Is it too ambitious for Italy or is there too much at stake to let it fail?

16 May Why are finance people scared of e-invoicing?

The business case stacks up. The technology is proven. There’s a potential to save literally $millions. So why are finance people scared of e-invoicing? Those who have been on the electronic invoicing journey will be familiar with the issue. There’s no objection to e-invoicing per se. The benefits are recognized and the finance and AP teams want to be good corporate citizens but they just can’t bring themselves to do it. “We need to ‘see’ the invoice” they say. “But the ‘invoice’ is the electronic file”, I reply. “Yes” they agree, ”we know that. But we need to be able to see it – even an image of it as it would appear on paper would suffice but we do need to be able to see it”. They are not being stupid and they are sincere in their concerns. It’s one thing to extol the benefits of eliminating paper but paper invoices are important documents for audit purposes. An auditor may be happy on one level to examine reports from a finance system to understand what is going on but at some stage they may well, and often do, ask to see the underlying legal documents. The actual invoice. And even before the auditor arrives, finance people may want to see actual invoices to get information that would not be included in the electronic invoice itself. Ship from, ship to, bill to addresses for example or hand written addendums. The inability to perform such examinations presents a real objection that has to be overcome for an e-invoice program to be successful.

15 May Tradeshift and Invoiceware International partner to deliver compliant e-invoice validation in Latin America

e-invoicing sounds to most like a boring bit of back office business but in Latin America, the issue of e-invoicing and in particular the issue of getting it right is a little bit more on the edge. Getting its wrong can have serious and dramatic consequences which is why it good news for Tradeshift to have partnered with the leading solution provider in the region, Invoiceware International, to deliver guaranteed compliance.