E-invoicing: suitable for everyone so start now!

Although the civil engineering and construction industries are not at the forefront of automation, the sector is crying out for coherent information management. But the sector must get rid of its cold feet. A helping factor here is that governments are already increasingly prescribing things like e-invoicing. In central government, digital invoicing is already a requirement. "So then you have to," says Arnold Ruisch of Van Meijel Automatisering. "But what we actually want is for contractors and suppliers to work together with bouwend Nederland to see how they can get rid of the whole receipt process, because they themselves see the advantages of it."

Marcel van Wensem of eConnect (a company in the process of modernizing one of the most important and time-consuming business processes: namely, making the administration process entirely electronic: machine2machine) agrees that there is still much to be gained in the administrative field. "Every organization processes invoices. So our mission is: automatic administration for everyone, including e-invoicing." And by everyone, he means not only the large builders or users of VanMeijel software, but also the small zzp'er who now occasionally sends an invoice as a pdf via email. 

What exactly is e-invoicing?

Ruisch first wants to clarify what is meant by e-invoicing. "By this we mean that you indicate in the administrative system that an invoice is final and that this invoice -without any further human intervention- is delivered to the system of the receiving party, as a booking or via an approval system. Only then are you really getting it right in terms of cost savings, efficiency and error reduction." But how do we get the industry off its cold feet?"

Ignorance

Van Wensem notes that the initial barrier of "what do we have to do to set it all up?" is easy to take. "That fear is often based on ignorance. In fact, many software/accounting packages already include a way to actually deliver an invoice electronically over a secure network. Matter of a small action by the user to convert something and put it into use. The realization that they can easily automate something in the software they are used to working with helps to actually use it." 

Standardization

Standardization is another way that contributes positively to the automation drive that companies need to start making. Because it works stagnating if invoices are invoiced in various ways. Van Wensem: "We put an end to the discussion around different standards, formats and invoice types by normalizing them to a standard that a receiving package can handle, for example Peppol and DICO." Ruisch knows that by now some 50-60% of the industry is already working with DICO. "That standard is accepted and embraced by the construction industry." Apart from the file format, that should be true of the network as well, Van Wensem believes. "You have to take out the complexity as well as the uncertainty for the user so that that is no longer an obstacle." 

Accuracy, timeliness and completeness 

"It's about accuracy, timeliness and completeness," Van Wensem knows. "And exactly all three of these conditions are met immediately when you do e-invoicing." Ruisch explains, "If an e-invoice comes through a reliable e-invoicing network, then you can be sure that everything on the invoice (such as supplier, invoice content, etc.) has been verified. Also all the line information with orders are already on the invoice, so invoice matching with the order process could also be automated. Because the enormous gains to be made extend beyond invoicing." VanMeijel's Metacom platform is one such all-in-one system that significantly reduces the administrative burden for contractors, among others.

Integrating e-invoicing into software

The eConnect e-invoicing solution is integrated into Metacom behind the scenes. "The user doesn't notice anything about this," says Van Wensem. "I always compare it to calling on your cell phone: no matter what type of phone or network you call from: you just get to talk to each other. That's basically how we work: eConnect is the software that handles the invoice to be processed (incoming or outgoing) in the ERP system." This super low-threshold way of e-invoicing contributes to its success and acceptance. "So it really is for everyone!" concludes Ruisch.