The formation of the world's largest e-invoicing network by Tradeshift and Intuit will give another boost to the adoption of e-invoicing world-wide. This combined with the emerging new standards could see 2013 as the year that e-invoicing takes off globally.

The e-invoicing network, Tradeshift, has linked up with QuickBooks' five million users of its accounting and payments products to form a partnership that gives the nascent network truly global scale.

Tradeshift has connected 150,000 businesses so far, and expects to grow considerably with its new investor and partner Intuit helping out. According to the firms, the planned integration of Intuit's accounting and payments products with Tradeshift's electronic trading network will streamline commerce between Intuit's large small-to-medium sized enterprises (SMEs – primarily in the US) and the participants on the electronic trading network.

SMEs using QuickBooks should find it easier and less time-consuming to comply with their customers' e-invoicing mandates, following the link-up. Large enterprises will find that more of their suppliers will be willing to participate due to the reduced cost and friction enabled by the planned integrations and upgrade in scale.

Overcoming the long tail
The biggest problem for companies implementing e-invoicing programmes is converting the 1000s of SMEs. Connecting Intuit's small businesses to enterprises via the Tradeshift network addresses could remove an important barrier for many of the their customers.