Electronic invoicing
In the wake of the digital transition undertaken by many governments and companies, the dematerialization of invoices for tax purposes is gathering pace in Europe.
Many European countries, such as Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal, have already made it compulsory for suppliers to public administrations to issue invoices in electronic format over the past 5 years. France plans to introduce this obligation as early as 2024.
What was previously reserved for B2G, i.e. commercial relations between companies and public administrations, now extends to inter-company or B2B relations. The French government, via the Finance 2020 bill, will make it mandatory for all companies to be able to receive invoices in dematerialized format from July 1, 2024.
This revolution is not frightening companies, even though the preparations don’t really seem to be over: according to a survey, 93% of respondents say they are confident in the implementation of electronic invoicing, and 76% of companies say they have implemented e-invoicing for customer or supplier invoices.
However, if we dig a little deeper, this confidence seems a little excessive: in fact, 31% of respondents admit to using only PDF invoices without a signature to dematerialize their invoices, a process that is insufficient in view of the e-invoicing obligation.
Far from being a simple regulatory constraint, the dematerialization of invoices should be seen as a lever for the company’s digital transformation.
Implementing an invoice dematerialization process offers a number of advantages that go beyond simply reducing costs:
- Overall improvement in invoice processing and validation
- Improved DGP (Global Payment Delay), enabling compliance with the 2008 French Law on the Modernization of the Economy (LME), which imposes stricter measures on payment terms between companies.
- Improved supplier relations thanks to greater transparency
- Reduced processing time and tangible costs (paper, envelopes, stamps, archiving, etc.)
Our procurement consultants have extensive experience in managing and deploying major e-invoicing projects on an international scale, and a sound knowledge of the tools available on the market to help you make the transition to e-invoicing with peace of mind.
