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Governments in many countries are considering how best to capitalize on the opportunities that electronic invoices present. Some countries like Brazil and Mexico have used the force of law to insist on the use of electronic invoices - other countries have mandated that suppliers to public sector use e-invoices. But some of the biggest economies in the world, notably Germany, the UK and the United States seem hesitant. Perhaps they don't want to interfere too closely in commerce. Maybe it's the fear of the bureaucracy of new legislation that puts them off. It could be lack of political will. But by providing no encouragement or leadership, these governments are depriving their economies of literally $billions in efficiency and liquidity and as a stakeholder in this, I'd like to propose a three point plan to persuade businesses to use electronic invoices.

It's clearly the right thing to do. So why isn't everybody doing it? I'm going to have to come clean. I was, for years, one of those people that was reluctant to recycle. I wasn't a global warming skeptic or anything like that. My formative years were in the 1970's when we thought the oil was about to run out. Green was good and what is now called sustainable energy sources were seen as the way of the future. I have a scientific education so when I hear that a large majority of scientists agree that there is an urgent need to control carbon emissions I don't think twice about ignoring the conspiracy theorists and crackpots that claim we can carry on regardless. So why was I reluctant to recycle? Why was I not in the least bit motivated to turn off my standby lights? And why do I love plastic bags? And what's any of it got to do with electronic invoicing?

Question: When is an standard not a standard? Answer: When there’s loads of them. In Europe, there’s more e-invoicing standards than there are languages spoken so, when the EU Commission in it’s draft directive on e-invoicing in public sector calls for more consideration into developing a common standard, is it suggesting we need more? I spoke to Mikkel Hippe Brun, Chief Strategy Officer at Tradeshift, to get his thoughts.

Taulia has a world-class product that gives customers a high return on their cash balances while putting affordable working capital in the hands of suppliers. Dynamic discounting is a simple model and very effective but Taulia have always had one big problem – they only serve SAP customers. Because their dynamic discounting solution is native to SAP, there’s a huge market that they simply can’t access. But now there’s a team that can access the non-SAP market – they’re called Taulia.