OB10, the global eInvoicing network, has confirmed a recent surge in the use of electronic invoicing by the business-to-business community, as paper invoicing is increasingly seen as labour intensive, uneconomical, error prone, outdated and expensive.
In addition, the current push for companies to become more environmentally responsible means that the use of printed invoices is viewed as an unnecessary waste of paper and natural resources.
According to OB10, paper invoice processing can cost companies between £2 and £10 per invoice, largely due to time being wasted by postal delays, lost items, incorrect data entry on receipt and multiple checks along the way. These delays mean that it can take weeks just to get the information into the buyer's invoice processing system, leaving the buyer without a good view of commitments and the supplier unlikely to be paid on time.
However, buyers operating in a business-to-business setting are currently benefiting from an established - and growing - global supplier network that can provide significant cost savings and rapid return on investment through improved processes.
Other advantages of eInvoicing include better reporting and forecasting, improved cash flow management, support for corporate governance and the opportunity to leverage existing investments in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).
"Of all the procedures that are conducted in the back office on a daily basis, invoice processing still stands out as an area that is remarkably inefficient, time-consuming and a large drain on the finances and resources of many companies," says Jamie Gunn, CEO of OB10.
"Increasingly, companies involved in business-to-business relationships are realising that eInvoicing can provide guaranteed delivery and immediate processing of invoices, which leads to fewer disputes, significant cost-savings, and improved audit and controls, as well as the knowledge that their business will be benefiting the environment in the process."
Historically, with no universal data standards and no uniform template for electronic invoicing, computers have simply not been able to communicate, leaving the invoicing process difficult to automate. As a result, for many years, business-to-business electronic commerce - including invoicing - has been conducted through EDI. However, EDI represented an expensive and difficult solution to implement, with few companies managing to automate more than 5% of their invoice volumes.
EDI did, however, clearly demonstrate the benefits of paperless invoicing and therefore helped to lay the foundations for electronic invoicing. Since then, only a small number of solutions have emerged that enable businesses to send and receive invoices electronically - without the need for additional hardware or software - whilst also operating across borders under different tax legislations, with all suppliers able to participate.
This latest generation of eInvoicing solutions, however, can now successfully give companies increased control over their processes. In fact, eInvoicing services like OB10 can extract invoice data directly from a supplier's billing system and send it directly to the buyer's ERP system, eliminating the need to process, manually key-in, or store paper invoices. OB10 provides a secure archive, ensuring that all invoices exchanged can be stored and accessed in accordance with regulatory requirements.
