Overall e-invoicing is growing world-wide, with significant differences between the regions says Bruno Koch at Billentis in his ‘E-invoicing / E-billing - International Market Overview & Forecast’ report:

Source & Copyright©2015 - Billentis

Billentis forecast for e-invoicing volumes and trend radar for 2015:

Source & Copyright©2015 - Billentis

 

Europe e-invoicing 

Billentis report that:

• European market growth for electronic processes is strong and sustainable. Organizations in the public and private sector are under pressure more than ever to reduce costs and to improve their Cash Management. Combined with the rich offering of solutions, these benefits are sure to result in further strong market growth for electronic invoicing and related topics. With an estimated volume growth of 17% in B2B/B2G/G2B and 12% in the B2C segment for 2015, E-Invoicing is currently one of very few growing markets. The volume directly exchanged between trading parties grows less than the volume exchanged via B2B networks. Operators of networks are expected to increase the processed volume by 20% in the B2B/B2G/G2B segment, whereas the B2C volume via service providers might be 14%.
• E-Invoicing volume in Russia might multiply this year. Strong growth rates may again be expected for Turkey.
• Growth rates above average for B2B/B2G/G2B might be expected in all European countries with obligations in place in 2015: Italy, Slovenia and Spain. A great deal of momentum is also apparent in Belgium. This is due to the market maturity generally now leveraged by private and public sector organizations and the activities of the national multi-stakeholder forum.
• At least 25 operators of E-Invoicing networks are expected to each process more than 20 million E-Invoices/E-Bills this year. For the vast majority of today’s 620+ operators, the annual E-Invoicing volume still lies below 5 million. The metric “Turnover/E-Invoice” dramatically dropped in 2014 and will probably decline again by 13-17% p.a. in the coming years. Of 210+ operators I recently analysed in-depth, 68% were profitable, but the average profit is very minimal.

Other regions e-invoicing 

Billentis report that:

• North America: is expected to achieve volume growth rates comparable to the ones in Europe, or slightly above, in 2015. The processed B2B volume is expected to reach around 2.8 billion E-Invoices this year. B2C volume is estimated to reach 4 billion. The number of E-Invoicing network operators is likely to grow from 130 to 150.
• Latin America: The 11 billion annual E-Invoices in Brazil will likely grow only moderately, whereas the 5 billion in Mexico could still increase by 20-25% in 2015 (estimated by Indicium Solutions). Additional Latin American countries may expect a further boost in 2015. Most momentum is expected in Bolivia, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Peru and Uruguay.
• Asia-Pacific: Vietnam intends to follow the Latin American model, pushing E-Invoicing towards a mandatory control vehicle for the tax authorities. It seems that an E-Invoicing obligation in Ukraine could also become a fact this year.

E-invoicing operator profitability

Billentis are pessimistic about the long term viability of the e-invoicing business. Their analysis of European operators shows that the processing volumes are too low and profit is minimal. No wonder that operators such as Tungsten (OB10) are adding new dynamic discounting and other services to their offerings. Indeed suppliers such as Talia do not charge for e-invoicing, instead relying on the income from dynamic discounting.

(For more details, see: www.billentis.com/einvoicing_ebilling_market_overview_2015.pdf) 

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CTMfile take: E-invoicing is alive and growing, and is being sold increasingly as part of a bigger package, e.g. procure-to-pay. Corporates who are not using e-invoicing as part of a drive to improve their procure-to-pay processes are missing significant cost savings and efficiencies.