Has your company transitioned to e-invoicing yet? If you want your accounting to be more organised, more environment friendly, and make compliance with accounts payable (AP) regulations easier, e-invoicing may just be the solution you're looking for. In this article, we take a closer look at what e-invoicing is, its advantages, how to make the shift, and more.
Join us and explore the possibilities that this technology holds for your company.
What Is an E-invoice?
An e-invoice or electronic invoice is a form of electronic billing that is exchanged between a merchant/vendor and buyer to keep track of transaction details. This type of solution is usually applied in B2B or business-to-business transactions.
E-invoices are delivered in standard formats through digital channels from the time they are issued to the time the information is stored. Replacing manual invoicing with a digital version increases efficiency and minimizes errors.
Are you looking forward to digital invoicing? You'll need to look into e-invoicing software.
What Is E-invoicing Software?
E-invoicing software automatically creates billing documents and details for products and services based on a tailored e-invoice format. Once the e-invoice is complete, it can be stored on the cloud or be integrated into the buyer's AP system. This enables companies to adopt a more seamless, efficient, and productive workflow.
Benefits of E-invoicing
E-invoicing is the ultimate solution for managing and monitoring transactions between vendors and suppliers. E-invoicing systems offer AP automation and can streamline workflows in real-time. It encompasses supplier portal integration, automated invoice matching and approvals as well as the automation (RPA) of routine tasks.
Ideally, the best e-invoicing software provides you with the following benefits:
Accessibility and Convenience
Because all key invoice data is centrally available on an e-invoicing portal or system database, individuals across different departments can access the information they need to perform their jobs quickly and conveniently.
Fraud Prevention
AP software typically allow users to maintain a list of verified suppliers for their businesses. This enables e-invoicing software to check against a company's approved list before invoices can be issued.
Another feature that prevents fraud is the way e-invoicing systems work. When companies use this technology, invoices go directly from the issuing company to the receiving company. Since it facilitates system-to-system transmissions, fraudsters aren't able to intercept and tamper with the e-invoices that have been automatically generated.
Timely Payments
With e-invoicing software, you can minimise late payments. Such software provides added visibility to all transactions, including upcoming due dates. It also makes payment processing easier by letting you approve and pay for products and services significantly faster.
Cultivating a reputation for making timely payments can strengthen your relationships with the companies you work with.
Enhanced Security
With cybercrime on the rise, businesses can use e-invoicing software to enhance security. A good e-invoicing software will have multiple levels of security measures to protect records and confidential information from hackers and fraudsters.
More Eco-friendly
Say goodbye to costly and disorganized paper trails. E-invoicing allows you to transact with your vendors and suppliers without printing a single page! Invoices are transmitted digitally from you to them. No trees need to be cut down. Plus, you'll also reduce your carbon footprint.
Reduced Costs
Aberdeen Strategy & Research discovered that invoice automation can reduce the costs of processing and producing manually printed invoices by as much as 49%.
Makes Compliance Easier and Cheaper
Ensuring compliance with local regulations can be a dizzying and time-consuming process for any business. Luckily, most e-invoicing software today is designed to make compliance easier.
In accordance with regulatory requirements, they allow businesses to keep a record of their invoices for a specified amount of time, provide a secure way to authenticate documents with e-signatures, and enable users to securely manage information about suppliers.
How Does An E-Invoicing Software Help?
Now that we're familiar with the advantages of using e-invoicing software, let's review the functionalities you can expect from it.
Tailor-made Invoices
One of the great things about e-invoicing software is the ability to customise. There are a vast amount of details that you can tweak according to your needs and preferences. You can create your own templates, forms, personalised reports, and insert your own logo to give invoices your brand's unique look and feel.
Each invoice can be further customized to contain information like the the products and services rendered, the name and contact information of the seller/buyer, price, discount, invoice number, sales tax, and more. You can basically build your own invoice from scratch!
You can also develop and use templates. This comes in handy when you have recurring or regular transactions with certain vendors.
Help With Billing and Payment Processing
E-invoicing lets you establish an online site for bills and payments. By using it, customers can make direct payments from anywhere and at any time. These automatically generated invoices can be easily processed as long as there is a working internet connection.
Most, if not all invoicing software are capable of handling multiple currencies, making sending, receiving, and managing foreign currency payments a breeze. Typically, electronic invoicing software should also be able to handle major languages as well as tax adjustments.
Easily Generate Reports
With e-invoicing software, you can track your invoices and monitor your finances. Reports are automatically generated for users in PDF and other formats while having the capability to send or receive them through email.
This will help you evaluate and analyse data with other team members to obtain important information such as how many clients pay on time, how long the average payment cycle is, etc.
Integration With Key Business Systems
You can integrate invoicing platforms with your accounting system for added conveneince. Some invoicing solutions will allow you to link directly to e-commerce platforms and shopping carts. You can also connect it to your payroll or banking systems as well as online payment platforms like PayPal to easily manage and process payments.
Useful in E-invoicing Software Features
Here are a few things to consider when adopting e-invoicing solutions for your company:
- Instead of quickly going for a full package offering an all-in-one solution, spend some time learning about your current billing processes. List down your company's specific needs. The right software should easily fit your needs and processes without requiring your accounting department to drastically adjust their current setup.
- Invoices are official documents from your company. They should look professional and credible. When choosing a software solution, explore customization options. Ensure that you can modify how they look so that they're consistent with your branding and desired layout.
- What levels of security and authentication does the tool provide? These features not only protect your company from fraud and theft but are also regulatory requirements that you need to comply with.
- What customer service channels does the e-invoicing software you're considering provide and how responsive are they? If you have issues or questions, the developer's ability to quickly handle and resolve them can affect your operations.
- Consider the accounting processes and level of automation that the tools can support.
- The software's ability to provide error-free invoices will in part depend on the validation it offers. Look into the types of validation each tool has.
- If you or your stakeholders are prone to encountering network issues, look for software services that can still be used when users are offline.
- The ability to generate and cancel bulk invoices with minimal effort is a useful feature to have.
easyap: Electronic Invoicing and Accounts Payable Services
easyap has been providing electronic invoicing and accounts payable services since 2001. Together with these services, our solutions also help with fraud detection and prevention.
Pay For Processed Invoices Only
To ensure that you only pay for the services you need, easyap offers a variable price structure that is based on the number of documents that it processes. This means that you don't have to make a significant upfront investment to reap the benefits of e-invoicing. You also won't need to implement complex new systems with our software as a service (SaaS) model.
A Trusted Provider
easyap has been a preferred e-invoicing and accounts payable provider across different industries such as banking, marketing, telecommunications, automotive, distribution, banking, food, tourism, and more. We are trusted by clients like Philips, Nipon Express, Good Year, Air Liquide, IKEA, Deutsche Bank, and Peugeot.
easyap is an ISO 27001 certified company so you can be sure that our processes and solutions maintain the highest levels of confidentiality, availability, and integrity.
What You Get
What can you expect from easyap?
- Get the tools you need to issue and receive invoices
- Have and follow an established workflow for invoice processing
- The technology to scan and extract data from your documents
- The ability to outsource invoice-related tasks
- Interconnectivity with the Spanish Tax Agency, Agencia Tributaria
- Management of employee expenses as well as a processing and posting workflow
easyap: Easier, Faster, Compliant, and Error-Free E-invoicing
Make invoicing processing and monitoring easier, faster, and error-free. easyap's e-invoicing software can transform your accounting processes with solutions that are focused on your clients, processes, and employees.
As experts in electronic invoicing, easyap employs experienced and knowledgeable accountants and IT specialists who are familiar with invoice processing. Find out how we can help you by visiting our website, scheduling a call, or by sending us a message.
