E-invoicing is slowly rolling out across the world, with most of the world in the developing/laggard state according to the Billentis, '2014 Annual E-invoicing Report', see figure:

Source & Copyright©2014 - Billentis

In their recent webinar, SAP and Billentis showed how Europe leads the world, but penetration is still only 14%-24% of the total which is amazing given all the hype, see figure below.

E-invoicing market penetration

Source & Copyright©2014 - Billentis

The main trends in Europe confirm the challenges to introducing e-invoicing across the region:

• there is some e-invoicing exchange amongst the larger companies and suppliers
• e-invoicing is starting to be across border as well as just domestic
• more process automation using the new standard ad new technologies
• most focus is now on moving beyond pure e-invoicing with:
  • multi-message and multi-format services being developed
  • support of the entire order-to-cash and procure-to-pay process
  • spend analysis services being provided by the e-invoicing service providers
  • new trade finance services coming to market.

Best practices and how to overcome the major barriers

The review of best practices was very similar to CTMfile’s ‘Maximising e-invoicing adoption' checklist. The tips on overcoming the major barriers included:

• Legal requirements are unknown or confusing: Involve experienced network operators supporting you with tax compliant cross-border E-Invoicing services
• Change/adoption of internal organisation processes: Ensure sufficient management attention and involve key persons in the project in an early stage
• Divergent requirements of trading partners regarding formats, methods and processes: Involve network operators with the capability to address all sizes of trading partners with various requirements
• Trading partners do not support the electronic invoice: Contact them. Often the trading partners just need inspiration to do it now and some guidance on how to do it. Higher acceptance if value added services are offered.

Business benefits for corporates 

Billentis believe that e-invoicing provides the opportunity for optimizing the whole corporate finance operation and signficantly reducing invoice processing costs for both supplier and buyer. The cost savings from just introducing e-invoicing are substantial with a saving of over €11/invoice.

Process costs for recipient (from real business case of a Billentis client)

Source & Copyright©2014 - Billentis

As well as the operational savings from process automation, there are far greater returns by turning A/P operation into a revenue generator, see Part II.