04 Jul 2011 e-invoicing – are you overlooking the biggest cost of all?
It was good fun last week to do an interview with Matthew Garrow-Fisher on SSL radio last week all about the e-invoicing business case.
We discussed a whole variety things connected with building a compelling case. You can listen to the interview here. After the interview, I was left pondering about how the numbers in a business case would vary depending on the supplier network that is used – whether you’re a supplier or a buyer – what if you use a free e-invoice solution like Tradeshift? The shape of the costs – not just the size – varies enormously. There are transactions fees, network membership costs, support costs, implementation and integration – the list goes on and on and each supplier takes a different approach. It is not easy to compare e-invoicing supplier networks.
And then it occurred to me that there’s one cost that’s often overlooked and it is probably the most significant of all – the cost of delay.
e-invoicing can deliver huge cash savings. If you’re building a business case for e-invoicing today the most significant cost to build into your calculations is the cost of doing nothing at all.