It is now a year and a half since the European e-Invoicing Directive came into force. Where are we now with the adoption of e-invoicing and what has happened in the meantime in the e-invoicing area?
Tradeinterop* figures show that the percentage of B2G invoices has increased significantly faster than that of B2B invoices.
Causes of strong B2G growth
The chart shows that the percentage of e-invoices to government agencies is starting to increase during 2018. E-invoicing to the central government is mandatory for contracts entered into after January 1, 2017. Enforcement on this was initially low, but in 2019, more and more government organizations began to tighten up on compliance.
On top of that, municipalities, provinces, water boards and contracting authorities will be required to be able to receive e-invoices from April 18, 2019. Many of them were ready for e-invoicing before then, and some of them actively approached suppliers asking them to deliver e-invoices.
The government has relied heavily on PEPPOL as a receiving channel. There are options for every type of organization to send e-invoices through the secure PEPPOL channel. In addition to accessibility of the channel, mandating plays a major role.
E-invoicing and B2B
Making e-invoicing mandatory makes it possible to make great strides in optimizing invoice processing. The tremendous time savings it provides allow employees to focus more on analyzing and advising the organization.
We see that more and more B2B organizations are including e-invoicing in their procurement terms and actively approaching suppliers with a request to deliver e-invoices. Yet there is still much to be gained for B2B organizations. For example, processing an incoming e-invoice costs a fraction of manual invoice processing and errors due to manual handling are a thing of the past. However, for e-invoicing to be successful, a good onboarding strategy is essential.
*Source: tradeinterop platform
