If you want to choose the right e-invoicing solution for your business, there are some crucial features it should include. The features mentioned below are identified as of significant importance for any long-term and successful implementation.
Electronic document transfer
The solution you’ll select, should support document transfer between customers and vendors, regardless of the standards their accounting systems are using, the size of their business, their technical abilities or their geographical location. It should also support other documents as well, such as POs, billing and credit notes, payments etc., which constitute the e-invoicing processes. Finally, it should work with the security policies and communication strategies of your business and your partners.
Integration with accounting
Based on relevant research, there is a great number of businesses that take advantage of the relevant functionality included in their ERP system. The e-invoicing solution that you’ll select, should enable easy integration with the existing workflow system, without requiring the replacement of the existing functionality. In short, you should be able to continue using your own accounting system for processing your data, while at the same time utilizing the existing management tools.
Compliance with regulations
Legislation and rules are constantly changing worldwide, and therefore you should ensure that your system always meets the requirements, in compliance with the revenue service demands. So, your e-invoicing solution should support updates, whenever changes occur, and these changes should then be clearly reported and handled from within the solution.
High-quality services
Your preferred solution should help you significantly reduce searches and analyses related to the validity of invoices, by conducting quality controls before delivering the invoices to your customers.
Archiving
One of the most significant requirements of various regulations is that of invoice archiving. Many jurisdictions demand that digital invoices are archived for long time periods. The e-invoicing solution that you’ll opt for, should be able to adjust to these requirements, while also offering easy access and retrieval.
Auditing and reporting
Given that VAT and sales tax represent a large part of the gross domestic product for most countries, auditing (external or internal) is an important factor for any e-invoicing solution. Therefore, it is important that you choose a solution that offers the following:
- Invoice presentation in a format that is easily comprehensible by humans
- Available reports for those that need them, both inside and outside the company
- Compliance documentation for unsigned EDI documents
- Compliance with privacy protection laws.
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