By fiscal 2013, the all commercial vendors to submit invoices via their Internet Payment Platform. The IPP itself will be implemented by fiscal year 2012 to get a jumpstart on the mandate.
Treasury is pushing the move to e-invoicing as part of President Obama's "Campaign to Cut Waste," and believes it will slash invoice processing costs in half, or by $7 million annually.
a Stamford, Conn.-based e-invoicing platform provider, finds in a soon-to-be-released survey that a third of respondents do not in any way use e-invoicing. As hard to believe as that might seem, the number on non-users is significantly lower than in last year's survey, which reported 58% of respondents rely on manual invoicing processes.
Among the top reasons to do e-invoicing, according to the new survey: operational efficiency (72%) and optimization of cash flow/management of working capital (55.7%).
Treasury itself expects that the move to electronic interactions will result in quicker payment for services, greater accuracy for invoice receiving and processing, and immediate online access to payment status.
This is in line with what Basware finds in its latest survey. Manual systems represent waste among respondents in terms of time spent entering/scanning invoices, time spent on approval, and missing and lost invoices.
"E-invoicing is just a much more efficient system. You reduce delays and the potential for human error," says Bob Cohen, vice president of Basware. However, he warns that the government must be firm in the mandate for it to take hold. "People are afraid of change. If they think they can get away with not doing something, they will," he says.
Another possible stumbling block: the hundreds of various invoice systems and proprietary formats available today. Individual companies and industries have different definitions of what e-invoicing means and the government will have to be clear on its standards. "E-invoicing is in its infancy, in terms of inter-operability, so more open models will be necessary," Cohen says.