Ardent’s FinTech Influencer Series highlights innovative voices in the world of ePayables automation. This series is the go-to spot for progressive thoughts on how technology, transformational thinking, and revolutionary ideas are changing how AP work gets done. Continuing our FinTech Influencer Series, today we are speaking with Tiago Silva, Global Key Account Manager, Pagero.
Ardent Partners: Welcome Tiago and thank you for spending some time with me today to discuss your upcoming presentation with Jorge Tracana of TAP Air Portugal on ‘e-Invoicing and Tax Compliance Taking off at TAP Air Portugal’ at the E-Invoicing Exchange Summit on September 26th – 28thth in Lisbon, Portugal. Let’s get started. Can you provide examples of various types of compliance and tax management challenges that eInvoicing addresses.
Tiago Silva: Penalties, sanctions, tax audits and customer experience. If you are doing business in a specific country that mandates eInvoicing and you don´t have that capability you will have two options -1- stop doing business there or -2- be prepared for penalties, sanctions and tax audits. Penalties are quite heavy in most countries and, on top of that, customer experience is highly affected because the receiving entity will not get their invoice in time, which will lead to customer management issues that can be avoided. Also, with eInvoicing, no invoices are stuck in a “spam” folder or lost in the mail; the sender has complete traceability on each document knowing, in real time, where the document is and if the client has received the invoice correctly in their system. With this being said, the possibility of the buyer paying the invoice faster, must be taken in consideration.
Ardent: How can eInvoicing solutions help organizations improve their compliance?
TS: eInvoicing used to be looked at in the past as “if” we need eInvoicing and now, surely, the question is “when” when will have eInvoicing capabilities. We see a lot of countries implementing eInvoicing mandates for several types of transactions, B2G, B2B and even B2C in some countries. So, if companies want to keep doing business in those jurisdictions, it´s essential that they are legally compliant in order to avoid fines and to get their invoices paid. That can only happen if they implement eInvoicing, therefore eInvoicing is key. Regulatory changes happen quite frequently so, not only is essential to be compliant, but to stay compliant.
Ardent: How can eInvoicing solutions help organizations improve their tax management?
TS: With eInvoicing all the data is handled electronically and rarely do you see any errors that are related to manual handling. This allows organizations to be quite accurate on it comes to their own tax management.
Ardent: Can eInvoicing solutions help organizations with global expansion?
TS: Absolutely. Clients of eInvoicing networks can use a single connection (SFTP, AS2, HTTP, etc) to handle all their outbound and inbound eInvoices anywhere in the world.
Ardent: In addition to tax and compliance management, what other benefits can eInvoicing solutions bring to enterprises?
TS: So many. But if we have to pinpoint them, efficiency and cost savings are massive differentiators. For example, a PDF or paper invoice has to be received, opened, scanned or printed, looked at manually, validated and sometimes corrected; on top of that, data entry is necessary too. All of this takes a lot of time and costs money. With an eInvoice, none of this is necessary. The data can be automatically ingested into a company’s ERP, along with a readable file (PDF) of the invoice and, if applicable, additional attachments too. Managing invoices electronically have been shown to reduce costs by up to 70% or more.
Ardent: What advice would you give to enterprises that are just beginning to explore eInvoicing solutions?
TS: Great question. My main advice is “don’t look at eInvoicing as just a cost”; if that happens, you will be overlooking many other real benefits. Also, don´t look at e-invoicing as something merely mandatory. It´s not an accident that governments all around the world and mandating eInvoicing; this happens because it´s the most efficient, effective, and most affordable way to exchange business documents between organizations. In most countries where you eInvoicing mandates have been implemented for a longer time, you can see that private companies are taking the advantage of the initiative as well to send/receive electronic documents to/from their clients/suppliers. This happens because companies understand the value of eInvoicing and never want to back to manual ways of working (PDF and/or paper).
If your organization is not totally convinced on eInvoicing, my recommendation is to do a trial for a few months. Everyone is accustomed to working with PDF and paper invoices but as soon as they see how much better eInvoicing is, they’ll will never go want to back to the PDF and paper era.
Ardent: Thank you for your time and best of luck on your presentation at the E-Invoicing Exchange Summit on September 26th – 28thth in Lisbon, Portugal.
