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e-invoicing

Written by Ana Canteli on 12 august 2022

The invoice, as a document, is nothing new. It is the most mundane, actually. Just as creating a company, getting it to work, or working in one requires a lot of effort - because it is not trivial to create something attractive enough for someone to buy or hire - the invoices themselves voluntarily, not they have no mystery. All the world, even those not versed in documents or commercial law, have held one in their hands at some time. Another thing is that we understand what appears there, but that's another matter.

Invoices are documents-evidence of an event, usually an economic transaction for acquiring or enjoying products or services. So far, so good. Before, all of them were paper documents; For some time now, the electronic invoice has been taking over its space, increasingly more significant. Tell the millennials or generation Z. Most companies related to these generational groups no longer send their invoices by regular mail. For them, the invoices are accessible through the company's website. They only have to enter their login and password, and they will be able to access their invoices, among other data.

And public administrations are not an isolated environment. Although electronic invoicing is an option in other areas, since 2015, companies that work with the Public Administration have been obliged to issue their invoices in electronic format.

This will change from June 2023; It will be when companies with a turnover of more than €8 million will be obliged to issue electronic invoices to each other. Other smaller organizations should not rest on their laurels. On November 29 of last year, the Create and Grow law was approved, conceived to facilitate the creation of companies, fight against delinquency and promote the growth of SMEs, reducing regulatory and financial obstacles. In addition, Law 11/2021, of July 9, on measures to prevent and combat tax fraud, will oblige companies to use a billing program approved by the Tax Agency to generate a billing record for each invoice. This facilitates sending the form to the Tax Agency if necessary.

As can be seen, the development of the regulatory framework in this direction promotes the digital transformation of companies at the national level. The pandemic printed an acceleration never seen in digitization. The fight against delinquency and tax fraud helps maintain speed. But not everything is bad news or obligations we are charged with without consideration. We must not forget that digitization helps keep the positioning of companies and even contributes to improving their competitiveness, especially regarding SMEs. Because technology companies, business organizations, or public administrations are aware that the implementation of electronic invoicing is part of the digitization process. It makes no sense, and it would even be counterproductive not to address the issue. For the rest of the companies, which for one reason or another are not sufficiently aware, the deadline is 2025. And honestly, it is best to arrive at that date already prepared and with a billing process following legal requirements.

Advantages of electronic invoicing

The use and implementation of the invoice in electronic format bring benefits to the business sector:

• Cost savings: this is the most evident benefit. By not having to print, envelop, stamp, and send the invoices in paper format by regular mail, we save all the costs of stationery, printing, and postal services.
• Better space management: by converting the billing system to an electronic process, all the space previously dedicated to the storage of paper invoices can be dedicated to other needs.
• Shorter billing cycles: thanks to the implementation of electronic billing, the entire process is optimized. The issuance and the receipt or payment of invoices are accelerated since manual intervention is reduced throughout the process.
• Greater security: from reducing the role of paper - sensitive to physical loss, destruction by fire, and flood - through the minimization of human errors. The electronic invoice guarantees that the invoice will not be manipulated since said document includes an electronic certificate that protects it from fraud attempts.

To benefit from the advantages of electronic invoicing, the best thing to do is to implement the digitization that it entails throughout the company, not in parts or anecdotally.

To do this, document management software such as OpenKM facilitates digital transformation in the company.

With OpenKM, any organization can manage the complete billing cycle. Suppose you still manage part of it in paper format. In that case, optical character recognition makes it easy to identify the invoice and extract the critical values ​​in metadata. These key data can be used to identify any invoice, for example, from the search engine. These attributes can even be used to classify or catalog invoices. And of course, these tasks can be implemented in OpenKM through automation.

The workflow engine included in OpenKM could also be used to manage billing flows. Thus, for example, if we receive or issue an invoice if the value is above a certain threshold, OpenKM can capture that invoice within an approval workflow. In addition, OpenKM has an audit trail that guarantees traceability throughout the entire billing system.

OpenKM is 100% customizable. The company can use OpenKM to create a billing portal for customers or suppliers. In addition, the OpenKM suite offers a signature client with a digital certificate and a handwritten electronic signature application.

If you want to know how the electronic invoice works, contact us, and we will show it to you in a personalized online demo.