Nokavision and Cannock:
‘Specific knowledge of tradeinterop increases
the efficiency of e-invoicing’
Thijs Wolvers
Sales director
at Nokavision
Raoul Jonkers
Supplier performance
manager at Cannock
Provider of complete credit management solutions Cannock has worked with Nokavision for many years. Among other things, this software company handles the processes surrounding the standardisation of layouts of (digital) interactions for customer communications sent by Cannock on behalf of their clients. When a Cannock client indicated it wanted to e-invoice, e-invoicing specialist tradeinterop joined the partnership. Sales director Thijs Wolvers of Nokavision and supplier performance manager Raoul Jonkers of Cannock talk about how this trilateral cooperation is working and the benefits it offers their organisations.
How did the collaboration between Cannock and Nokavision come about?
Jonkers (Cannock): ‘We provide credit management for companies and local authorities, especially municipalities, and take the entire financial cycle off their hands. This ranges from sending invoices and payment reminders to deploying collections and bailiffs when necessary. Initially, we created the layouts of our customers’ documents ourselves. However, due to increased complexity and increased demands for flexibility and speed, this was no longer manageable for us ourselves. Arriving at that point, we started looking for a partner and came across Nokavision.’
What are Nokavision’s services for Cannock?
Wolvers (Nokavision): ‘Among other things, we provide our customers, including Cannock, with software for customer communication management solutions. For Cannock, this means that we delivered a platform that optimises customer communication across multiple channels. We are then responsible for assessing and monitoring the quality of this output. In practice, the result is that all communications Cannock sends out on behalf of their clients are always spot-on, in accordance with the agreements, and they don’t really have to worry about it anymore.’
Jonkers (Cannock): ‘Creating documents for our output is now very simple. We can adjust the layout very easily if necessary, which increases our service level enormously. This in turn leads to greatly increased commitment from our employees. They no longer struggle to cope with changes and should support be needed, we have a single point of contact at Nokavision. All this obviously results in huge cost reductions.’
How did tradeinterop come into the picture at Cannock?
Jonkers (Cannock): ‘We had a customer who wanted to switch to e-invoicing via the global Peppol network. Initially, we then built a solution ourselves for which we also provided maintenance. Only, that was much more laborious than we thought. After all, regulations and related requirements changed every week or so. Moreover, there are all kinds of exceptions and developments follow each other in rapid succession. Then you have to find out for yourself via Google how to change this again and you get lots of possible solutions. Well, which one should you choose if you don’t have sufficient expertise? In short, we got completely stuck – which was very demotivating and costly – and asked Nokavision for advice. They then came up with the suggestion to engage tradeinterop , a preferred partner with whom they had been working on e-invoicing for some time.’
Wolvers (Nokavision): ‘Tradeinterop has been a cooperation partner of ours for some time. The moment our customers want to extend their invoicing system with e-invoicing, they join us and the customer in question. In this case, we worked with tradeinterop to build an XML interface that connects seamlessly with our smart SmartCOMM engine, on which Cannock’s communication output runs. The solution is actually quite simple: the moment a Cannock customer wants to e-invoice, the output system takes another turn and enters tradeinterop’s interface. From there, everything goes automatically.’
That does sound very easy.
Jonkers (Cannock): ‘Yet that is true. What goes on behind the interface, under the bonnet, is only in essence important to us. What matters is that everything runs smoothly and that it takes us much less time. Of course, things do occasionally go wrong and that usually has to do with customers who do things differently than they should according to existing legislation and protocols. In that case, we contact tradeinterop and they solve it. This is because at tradeinterop they know exactly how the e-invoicing market works. They know the senders and companies that work with it and therefore understand in detail how those parties have set up their e-invoicing. Tradeinterop is an authority and that makes troubleshooting a lot easier than if we had to do it ourselves. They also actively advise us when the situation calls for it, which ensures that problems are solved before they even arise.’
What are the benefits of e-invoicing?
Jonkers (Cannock): ‘A big advantage of e-invoicing is that payment processing can never go wrong. This is in contrast to sending pdf invoices and paper invoices. Then a wrong numbering may have been assigned or the amounts and attributes do not correspond, for example. To sort that out again takes a lot of time. With e-invoicing, you don’t have all these problems. An e-invoice always has a fixed format, is directly read by the accounting program and does not have to be entered manually. Moreover, an e-invoice always arrives at the right destination. That offers us huge efficiency benefits.’
What is the added value for Nokavision of working with tradeinterop?
Wolvers (Nokavision): ‘E-invoicing is not our core business, but we do have clients who, like Cannock, benefit from implementing e-invoicing in the customer communication management solutions we have set up for them. For us, this is an essential added value that we want to offer our clients. Because of tradeinterop’s expertise, we are confident that our clients are happy with the final result. And so everyone gains from this collaboration.’
In short
Problem
Customer of credit management company Cannock wants e-invoicing. Building a solution yourself leads to implementation problems because of the complexity and lack of specialised knowledge. Result: a lot of research, high costs and demotivated employees.
Solution
Cannock approached collaborative partner Nokavision, which provides standardisation of their customer communications. Software company Nokavision introduces preferred supplier tradeinterop for devising the solution.
Result
E-invoicing specialist tradeinterop provides and implements an XML interface in the customer communication management solution Nokavision designed for Cannock. Every e-invoice sent and received goes through this route and all operations comply with applicable legislation and protocols. Result: excellent service levels, cost reductions and increased employee motivation.
