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Many governments around the world have now realized that digitization offers many benefits, including speed, transparency and, when it comes to invoicing, improving tax compliance. Businesses everywhere see an increasing number of countries introducing e-invoicing or tax portals and regulatory mandates. It can’t be ignored that the invoicing landscape is globally going through a fundamental shift, and that compliance becomes the main argument for organizations in choosing their provider.
What does an e-invoicing mandate mean?
Each country has their own flavor of regulations, as they progress at different speeds in their domestic digitization and tax compliance journeys. Invoicing through a government portal has been a reality for almost two decades in Brazil, and Europe has been experiencing the same shift for a couple of years, with the introduction of SDI in Italy, NAV in Hungary, or PEPPOL for public sector throughout the EU, gradually becoming a mandatory part of the invoicing process.
An e-invoicing mandate can therefore mean many different things: a formatting standard, a compulsory reporting of invoices on a government portal, or even a fully integrated journey of invoice clearance and interoperability. In a nutshell, invoicing has become more complex, especially for companies operating across multiple jurisdictions. Our colleague Christoph Neumann covers some of these scenarios in a recent webcast.
Challenges for supplying organizations
In order to meet regulatory compliance requirements, companies need to remain up to date with constantly evolving regulations, and to integrate to local government portals or networks which often make their current e-invoicing solution redundant. For a supplier, it can become cumbersome to receive purchase orders in one portal but to invoice in the government-mandated one. That is inefficient and undermines the value of networks such as SAP Business Network.
Our strategy for the future
In continuous conversation with our customers, we have established a vision and a strategy, that we introduced in a previous post.
Beyond regulatory consistency, SAP Business Network aims to streamline business-to-business collaboration, transforming how companies work with their trading partners and tax authorities across the globe using SAP and partner apps.
To turn this vision into reality, four major innovations are planned to shape the future development of SAP Business Network:
First, we will become an open network by providing suppliers with a single access point for outbound invoicing to send legally compliant invoices to customers both on and outside of SAP Business Network.
Second, we want to enhance invoice dispute management with built-in, AI-powered workflows to reduce manual effort and offer faster resolution, to the benefit of both buyers and suppliers.
Next, we will enhance invoice status visibility with improved error rejection codes and reasons. This has been a recurring pain point for suppliers.
And lastly, we plan on reestablishing business rule validations for buyers.
In the future, suppliers will use SAP Business Network as a single provider to reach all their buyers, with the confidence that all country complexities and invoicing requirements are catered for. Reduced invoice dispute and enhanced visibility into errors or rejection reasons will offer a seamless e-invoicing experience and a single communication channel for suppliers and their customers.
SAP Business Network is leading the charge
For us at SAP, compliance is only the baseline. We have always followed the evolutions of tax and invoicing mandates and done our due diligence to remain compliant. Thus, the network is already compliant in countries that currently mandate the use of some government portal or where some particularities apply.
More importantly, SAP Business Network offers value beyond mere regulatory compliance: suppliers can count on its flexible, intuitive and robust capabilities to help them automate, optimize and grow their commerce. To name just a few:
- a flexible offer to fit your needs with two account types and one subscription
- an intuitive interface and an efficient PO-flip invoicing principle
- visibility in invoice status and instant messaging for smooth customer communication
- a robust profile with compliance and sustainability information
- public and private electronic catalogs to promote products and services
- unique business intelligence and peer-validated analytics to support strategic conversations
- opportunities for growth with discoverability towards new buyers
With the current capabilities and commitment to our strategy, we are confident that the network will continue to be the solution of choice for all companies looking for strategic value beyond simple transactions.
For more information, read our e-invoicing strategy in details.
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