Electronic invoices: 3 tips to get the most out of them

Electronic invoices will significantly speed up and simplify your work compared to paper invoices. However, in practice, some companies fail to fully utilize the potential of electronic invoices for various reasons. Therefore, in this article, we describe three tips that will help you automate (or at least significantly simplify) your work with electronic invoices.

Tip No. 1: Use two-way EDI communication

EDI is the most reliable means of sending and receiving electronic invoices. When you and your business partner establish EDI communication , you send electronic invoices via a cloud service (such as our ORiON EDI ) in a special format and much of the work is done automatically .

The biggest advantages of EDI invoices:

• By linking EDI with other processes , the process of issuing invoices can be automated and issued, for example, only upon confirmation of receipt of goods by the counterparty,
• issued invoices are sent in a standardized EDI format directly to the counterparty's ERP system, not as an email attachment,
• Received EDI invoices are automatically accepted based on the created rules and can be approved immediately if, for example, the invoice corresponds to an approved order and recipient,
• each invoice can be automatically provided with an electronic signature ,
• a complete audit trail is created for each invoice,
• Throughout the process, companies can exchange control and verification messages to accept, reject, confirm correctness or report an error,
• All invoices can be stored in an electronic archive .

In standard transactions, companies have almost no work to do with invoices and their administration. The invoicer or accountant only plays a control role and usually does not interfere in the process at all.

Tip #2: Issue invoices using EDI, even if the counterparty doesn't have it

You don't have to give up the convenience of automated invoicing with EDI even if your company uses EDI but your business partner doesn't. Our ORiON EDI solution includes an additional eInvoicing service, which allows you to issue an invoice in EDI format, and then the system automatically converts it to the required format required by the counterparty (typically PDF or ISDOC, but also XML or CSV) and sends it to the client by e-mail. However, you still keep the invoice in EDI format with you.

Such an invoice can be provided with an electronic signature (in the case of standardized PDF or ISDOC formats) and the cloud service offers the option of saving it to an electronic archive. However, unlike EDI communication, a complete audit trail is not ensured, because there is no possibility of checking correct delivery when delivered by e-mail. For the less commonly used XML or CSV formats, there is no clear standard for electronic signature, and therefore it is not used.

Tip #3: Automate invoice receipt

Although EDI and eInvoicing can completely cover issued invoices, they do not solve the problem of receiving electronic invoices from a counterparty that does not use EDI. Typically, these are overhead invoices or merchandise invoices in unstructured formats.

In this case, it is possible to so-called extract these invoices. All you need to do is connect your email inbox to a solution for automating invoice receipt (for example, our iNVOiCE FLOW ), which will then extract individual items from the received invoices.

After connecting to an accounting or ERP system, received invoices are automatically loaded into the system , all data from issued and received invoices are unified and you can work with them comfortably. In addition, similar to EDI, rules can be set so that received invoices are matched with orders and automatically approved and posted if they match. You also have an electronic archive of invoices and each invoice has an audit trail.

Thanks to the synergy of cloud solutions that support EDI and the digitization of other invoices, all invoices can be processed quickly and easily , achieving the benefits of accurate automatic processing, item matching, and cost optimization.

Can everything really be done electronically?

Thanks to the full use of the potential of electronic invoices, there is no need to back up documents in paper form . Czech legislation (namely Act 235/2004 Coll. on Value Added Tax) allows companies to work with electronic invoices.

The condition is to maintain the authenticity, inviolability and readability of the document throughout the entire archiving period, which the described methods guarantee.

If you would like to know more about the potential of electronic invoicing in your company, you can register for one of our webinars , which we regularly publish. Alternatively, contact us directly and we will arrange a consultation where we will discuss the topic in more depth. We have years of experience with electronic invoicing and can tailor-make solutions for companies.