1) According to a 2017 report, only 5% of invoices in Belgium are fully digital using XML/UBL formats, while 45% are paper and 50% are digital PDFs sent via email.
2) Sending and receiving paper invoices costs businesses more than digital formats. Over 1 billion invoices are processed manually in Belgium each year.
3) The main barriers to fully digital invoicing are issues of volume and convenience - connecting more of Belgium's 100,000 companies and making the process simpler would help drive adoption. The presentation advocates for open standards, simplicity, and increasing volume across different sectors to advance digital invoicing.
6. Invoices in % (2017)
45% paper
50% fake digital –pdf via mail
5% fully digital –xml (ubl)
Source: https://efactuur.belgium.be/sites/default/files/explorer/elektronische_facturatie_dav_verslag_2017.pdf
15. #DigiCrowd believes in
• OPEN FORMATS and standards to facilitate integrations
• SIMPLICITY FIRST and work with your software of choice
• Increase THE VOLUME via different vertical markets
• and strive for COMPLETENESS
but there’s more…
18. IT’S A WRAP
• There are billions on the Belgian business table
• Don’t fake the funk by sending PDF-invoices
• Claim your right to CONVENIENCE and boost the VOLUME
• Join the #DIGICROWD movement at join@digicrowd.be
Notas del editor
Quickly –We are CodaBox, part of Isabel Group.
what’s our mission at CodaBox?
Our mantra is to make accounting simple.
CodaBox – to put it simple, we are the plumber who foresees the pipes and the data.
Through our API’s, we are open to connect with the software of choice for the end user.
When looking at this overview, it looks like we’re all set and you would expect that digital accounting in Belgium is already beyond its hype.
When I joined CodaBox last year, I was looking at this overview. I noticed that in Belgium more than 50% of the accountants were using the CODA service already.
From my B2C (personal) experience, I expected that the e-invoicing business would be far way further evolved than the bank statements and payroll documents…
However….
Numbers don’t lie… only 7550 companies subscribed since September 2012 on the Open European framework to receive UBL invoices.
This open framework which is call Peppol, is
Open,
-allows you to exchange invoices on a European scale
-in a fully digital way.
It should be convenient…. As it is already integrated in a fully automated way in various accountancy and collaboration softwares today…
% voor purchase invoices in B2B context
What’s the problem?
Is it the cost?
For those of you who have been in this space for a while, have definitely seen these numbers before.
Sending invoices for a company costs …. (details on graph)
Source of graphs:
https://efactuur.belgium.be/sites/default/files/explorer/elektronische_facturatie_dav_verslag_2017.pdf
If we look at the cost for receiving invoices for the different types, the difference is even bigger.
Receiving a paper invoice costs about 8 euros per invoice. If you go via a fully automated structured xml-message, you can save 5.77 euro/invoice.
Taking into account that we send more than 1billion invoices a year and we only receive 8% of purely digital invoices nowadays… well that means that all the cost savings that were mentioned before ‘per invoice’ can be multiplied with a billion
So it’s clear we all can save a lot of money by receiving our invoices in a “fully digital” and automated way
Accountants and their customers are not experiencing the e-invoicing process as a ‘convenient’ thing because they’re scared about lack of data or duplicate data
When talking to Senders – ‘big & small’
To Peppol or not to Peppol (zero-tariff)
Uncertain about ‘guaranteed good arrival‘
When talking to Receivers – ‘end users’ be it accountants and entrepreneurs
Not convinced about the digital volume
Afraid of duplicates & missing invoices
Unclear flow for invoice processing – we can provide the data but we leave it up to the end user to centralize, validate and share these data in the software of choice (an example of such a software will be explained by our colleagues of ClearFacts in the Pitch sessions)
That’s why we launched a month ago the DigiCrowd. A consortium with Sage, Wolters Kluwer & WinBooks to actively promote e-invoicing and help companies to make the step towards a fully digital invoicing flow.
Our goal is to subscribe by end of year 100K companies on our service called ‘Purchase Invoices’.
Again – we don’t care which software is used by the accountant and their end users. But it’s crucial that they’re equipped with the right software.
That’s why you all can contribute to the DigiCrowd…
Are you a large or a small sender and you want to get rid off paper -> the DigiCrowd can help
Are you a small or large companies and you want to receive as many invoices as possible today -> come & join the DigiCrowd.
Our goal: connect 100.000 companies in 2019 to receive purchase invoices in a fully digital way.
With this service CodaBox will go an look for your purchase invoices in all ‘pipes’ and channels.
We won’t look at Peppol only, even though that will bring the biggest flow in the future. Today we have more volume coming via Zoomit but we expect that Peppol soon will become bigger in terms of B2B invoices.
We strongly believe in
Open standards and formats to facilitate integrations, which allows software developers to easily read and process the data. This will boost the volume of invoices and will increase the convenience at the receiver’s side
We keep it simple and let the end users choose in which software they want to collect, validate and share their invoices
We want to create a ‘crowd’ feeling.
Digitalisation shouldn’t be pushed from top to bottom, it should grow organically from bottom to top within the entire society. That’s why we want to include these charities, because they pave the way for future generations.
For every connected business, we will donate €1 to a good cause that strives for social inclusion via digital initiatives and solutions.
We want to instigate the same hype as what we all experienced over the past couple of years with our Red Devils
As soon as we saw that these guys could become successful, we all joined the ‘TousEnsemble’ hype.
Well today, we’re inviting you to join the same experience but then this time with the ‘digicrowd’!