Australia Could Debut Compulsory eInvoicing

In Australia, the government could be looking at mandatory eInvoicing for companies, according to a report by Accountants Daily.

The effort would be phased in and start first with the biggest businesses, the report says.

eInvoicing, which constitutes digital exchanges of invoices between a supplier and buyer’s software or systems, has been hailed as a more efficient, secure and accurate method of doing business.

There could be some kind of sanction for businesses not complying with the government’s mandate. But the mandate, according to the government, would still let companies send non-eInvoices like paper or PDF notices.

A mandatory option, the government believes, will help to move along the adoption of eInvoicing and help it become part of the wider digitization of the invoicing process. Benefits of eInvoicing like saving time and cutting costs are also part of the appeal, the report says. The shift also anticipates the fact that in the next year or so, major accounting software providers will be able to support eInvoicing. That would give around 60 percent of small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) access in the near future.

That said, the measure would consist of regulatory costs for businesses, and companies that don’t make use of accounting software would find it difficult to follow the rule. The government could possibly only implement the rule for larger businesses or make it more flexible for companies to implement it at their own speed, the report says.

But the report notes that the other options wouldn’t carry the urgency that an all-out mandate would to help move along the adoption of eInvoicing.

Kim Vodicka, vice president of commercial operations at Dell Financial Services, spoke with PYMNTS recently about the shift in B2B payments because of the pandemic. She said the companies more entrenched in AP operations had a harder time transitioning to new ways of payment. But corporate buyers’ shifts to electronic payments has also had a “ripple effect” and enticed other members of the supply chain to adopt new B2B methods as well.