The regulations cited include some advantages of electronic invoicing from the regulator’s point of view: it is an instrument to reduce commercial late payment, promote business digitalization, reduce transaction costs in commercial traffic, fight fraud, etc. However, we will focus below on those that benefit companies more directly.

Cost savings and greater control over them

Indeed, it is essential to highlight the importance of electronic invoicing to save administrative and logistical costs:

• The time spent managing invoices is reduced, as is the cost of personnel. Also, additional costs are avoided due to human errors that require correcting invoices, improper shipments, etc., or due to manual management of incidents and claims.
• Material costs such as paper, printing, shipping and storage space are reduced.

Another advantage of electronic invoicing is that it provides greater control over expenses.

Electronic invoicing offers excellent savings and benefits in invoice management and supplier accounting, especially for large companies receiving high invoice volumes. Indeed, e-invoicing facilitates greater visibility and control of payments to suppliers, taking advantage of discounts, obtaining accurate information on costs to each supplier to include in the annual accounts, etc.

Furthermore, if these companies integrate Procurement solutions into the ERP so that the entire process, from ordering to invoice payment, is digital, managing Accounts Payable and other business expenses will be optimized.

Process automation

  Automation prevents staff from performing low-value or repetitive tasks such as entering invoice data, validating them, verifying and approving their payment, reconciling collections and payments with banks, or archiving all the documentation for each operation. Thus, the operational and financial management of both Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable is streamlined and becomes more reliable.

Increased productivity

As we have seen, using e-invoicing and automation saves staff costs, time, and money and improves the results and efficiency of invoice management processes. In effect, these business processes are optimized.

As a result, productivity increases significantly, and people can devote themselves to more relevant tasks that add value to the organization. At the same time, they work more comfortably, and their work is valued.

Greater security

Other benefits of electronic invoicing include:

• The B2B exchange of e-invoices is more secure, as it is carried out immediately and thoroughly.
• Critical decision-making data is available at all times and is more reliable.
• Traceability throughout the entire management process and secure digital archiving of documents facilitate internal and external auditing.

Moving towards digitalization

All of this explains the importance of electronic invoicing in advancing business digitalization. Software or a solution for invoice management creates digital workflows that link people, tasks and documents transversally and allow real-time control of what is happening. This way, processes can be managed with greater agility, reliability, visibility and flexibility.

Greater social and environmental responsibility

Of course, the mandatory B2B use of electronic invoicing encourages greater social responsibility on the part of large companies to pay their SME suppliers on time. In this way, they improve their commercial relationship and the transparency of their operations.

Another benefit of electronic invoicing is improving environmental responsibility, as it avoids the consumption and transportation of paper, ink, etc.