e-Invoicing Europe: one year on

Posted by: Sandra on: July 5, 2011

In: Conference | e-Invoicing | Electronic invoicing | P2P | Procurement | Technology | Working Capital
1 Comment

Goodness! What a morning at e-Invoicing Europe 2011 in London.

In four hours we’ve covered ten success factors for e-invoicing; explored the future e-invoicing landscape from the perspectives of the European Union, government policies, and public and private-sector adoption; and had practitioner insight from Orange Business Services, easyJet, Kimberly Clark, Finncontainers and BBC.

This is the third year for our e-invoicing conference and it’s hugely satisfying to see how our delegates and their projects have developed, and how the discussions we’re having have matured.

The easyJet story is a prime example. At our event last year in Paris (which really was sizzling in 34-degree heat), Imtiaz Ahmed, Finance Systems Project Manager, participated as a delegate. He did a short interview with us to explain why he was there and how he was at the beginning of the easyJet e-invoicing journey.

Today, with his colleague Sarah Rutt, Finance Service Centre Manager, Imtiaz gave us an update on their progress. As all the speakers have said, before jumping into e-invoicing get your house in order. EasyJet identified the sticking points in its P2P process, understood what could be addressed by reviewing internal processes, and pinpointed which manual processes could be automated.

With the foundations in place they have been able to start considering in detail what e-invoicing will look like for the airline company in terms of technology, change management, invoice receipts, reporting, workflow and implementation.

To reach their goals of reduced time and cost of processing, improved working capital management, and greater billing accuracy, Sarah says that it is unlikely that there will be one solution that will work for all their suppliers.

And echoing another recurring theme of the morning, easyJet’s procurement team is set to play a significant role. The e-invoicing project is fortunate that a recent restructure means that finance and procurement both report to the CFO now, which will enable this crucial alignment.

This snippet from easyJet gives a flavour of how the market is evolving as companies continue to make the compelling business case and start to deliver real results. And it shows that a lot can happen in 12 short months.

If you couldn’t join us, you can follow the nuggets via twitter and our tag for this event #einv11.