Tag Archives: Global eInvoicing

PayStream 2014 Recap

It’s been an impressive year at PayStream Advisors. Among our 2014 developments and achievements, we published 22 research reports—many of which explore new territory that includes Human Resource Management, VAT compliance in Latin America, Budgeting and Forecasting solutions, and more. We welcomed 125 business professionals to this year’s summit, INNOVATE 2014. We saw our Senior Analysts attend over 25 industry conferences from London to San Diego. We launched the exciting P2P Academy, which is now offered online via a self-study course.

In all, we’ve been working hard to broaden and enhance our educational offerings for our readers. The amazing AP, Procurement, and P2P automation trends that have been evident in businesses and industries throughout the world have inspired much of these improvements.

Among these trends, there has been a great increase in global eInvoicing and eProcurement initiatives. While Latin America has been the leader in national eInvoicing adoption for several years now, much of the rest of the world is starting to catch up in back-office automation. For example, Kenya adopted a national eProcurement system in an effort to bring the use of public money under greater transparency and accountability. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, among other Middle Eastern countries, are moving towards more uniform eInvoicing initiatives. The EU has been identifying issues with their current tax and trade systems, and is moving to make eInvoicing more appealing and accessible in order to correct these problems.

This past year has also seen more global movement to provide small to medium-sized enterprises with access to eInvoicing and working capital optimization programs. President Obama passed the second version of the Supplier Pay Initiative to promote expedited payments from large corporations to their smaller vendors. The UK launched several initiatives to spur small business growth, including revamped VAT tax returns and more releases of educational market material on small business financing. GT Nexus, IFC, and Levi Strauss & Co (LS&Co) have partnered to create a new supply chain finance program that provides financial incentives for garment suppliers in developing countries.

Other vendors have taken note of SME initiatives and the widening middle market—in response they have also been creating unique financing programs and solutions. To complement SupplierPay, Taulia Inc. launched the Early Payment Quick Start Initiative, a program that encourages and simplifies early payment financing. TradeShift has also taken a stand to help the small and big business connection with their expansive supplier onboarding techniques. PayPal’s new Working Capital will offer cash-advances for smaller companies who cannot as easily utilize bank loans and lending services.

There were many other instances when software providers, organizations, and governments took great steps towards better understanding automation possibilities this year, and towards making room for more widespread and optimized adoption (readers are encouraged to browse 2014 posts from our blog, PayStream Voices, for more). We are looking forward to 2015, and we are confident that it will bring us even greater and more inspirational P2P innovation.

Upcoming Webinar: PayStream and Basware on Global eInvoicing

This Thursday (December 11^th), we’ve got an exciting webinar planned for AP and P2P professionals—especially those from companies that are looking to expand their B2B scope past their national borders. For our recent 2014 Global eInvoicing report, PayStream spent quite some time investigating the current trends and recent developments in eInvoicing around the world. Our main goal with this research (and this webinar!) is to provide North American companies with the proper insight and tools to join a global business arena.

For this webinar, we will team up with the global eInvoicing provider, Basware, and their Vice President of North American operations, Bob Cohen, to discuss the findings of the PayStream’s 2014 Global eInvoicing Report. In the report, research reveals differing adoption rates in different regions and countries, as well as how North American eInvoicing stands up next to its neighbors, near and far. We’ve found that Europe and Latin America show the most advanced eInvoicing networks and the most widespread B2B eInvoicing usage, although interest in eInvoicing network participation is growing among North American businesses. In addition, we’ve identified some major drivers for global eInvoicing adoption initiatives that include the Public Sector, SME involvement, and Supply Chain Financing.

We believe this information is very important for companies interested in gearing their business operations towards international activity. Globalization is expanding, speeding up, and dramatically changing trade all around the world, and in response, eInvoicing solution providers are focusing their development strategies on cross-border B2B functionalities. With this shifting attitude toward global business, it is important for North American companies to learn from successful international organizations, and rise to meet the changing B2B world. Webinar attendees will be given valuable tools for choosing a globally focused solution that will bring security and competency to international trade activity.

This webinar is for companies that are tired of sitting on the sidelines as the rest of the world expands their business operations and advances their business technology. Together, PayStream and Basware will provide the information and incentives necessary to push these companies across their borders and into global innovation. Join us this Thursday, December 11^th, for the Global eInvoicing webinar, and learn how to prepare your organization for a broader business future.

Global eInvoicing Growth —The Rising Revolution

Around the world, electronic invoicing has had some great developments in the last few months. PayStream has seen amazing progress among governments and businesses as adoption initiatives pick up speed and entire industries see the advantages of eInvoicing networks. Smoothing the way for better B2B collaboration and communication, eInvoicing software empowers global companies to operate strategically and with minimal worry about differing tax and business regulations across borders.

This is especially true for countries in Latin America. Many of these countries have implemented mandatory eInvoicing networks in order to reduce tax fraud and to increase compliance to their complicated VAT systems. While Brazil, Chile, and Mexico are among the leaders in LatAm eInvoicing, other countries in the region are jumping on board. In addition, solution providers are becoming more competitive as they strive to make software that relieves pressure from buyers and suppliers struggling to keep up with rapidly changing government mandates.

Nations around the rest of the world are taking a cue from Latin America. eInvoicing in Portugal became fully mandatory this past April, while in Italy, an eInvoicing system will be mandatory in February of next year. Indonesia has recently introduced their own VAT-focused eInvoicing system, scheduled to become mandatory by July, 2016. Countries with financial automation systems already implemented are seeing amazing results. In Turkey, the Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek recently reported that their electronic billing system has saved the country TRY 650 million (around USD 293 million) of extra costs and prevented 100,000 trees from being cut.

Europe in general has taken big steps to promote widespread eInvoicing adoption. They are identifying the issues with their current systems—a recent VAT Gap study by the European Commission estimated EUR 177 billion in VAT revenues was lost due to non-compliance or non-collection in 2012. An additional report revealed the lost revenue equals 16% of total expected VAT revenue by the 26 EU Member State.

In addition, the EU is moving to correct these problems by making eInvoicing more appealing and accessible. In order to promote uniform public information structures, the EU recently designated UBL2.1 as referable standard (mainly applicable for eProcurement). It has also been reported that the alternative finance market in the UK —a great asset for European SMEs—is set to double in size in 2015, with the sector as a whole set to reach a value of GBP 4.4 billion.

In all, the initiatives taken around the world are inspiring and educational. In North America, such widespread adoption efforts are rising at a much slower pace due to differences in business strategies and tax systems. We encourage our North American readers to study the strategies of global companies and apply them to their own business goals. The benefits of eInvoicing are applicable to entire industries and nations—not just individual organizations.To learn more about the global trends in eInvoicing usage and adoption, look out for our upcoming 2014 Global eInvoicing report.

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