State Treasury of Finland leads the way in e-invoicing

The State Treasury of Finland is being
heralded as leading the way in e-invoicing adoption by rolling out
a free-of-charge service to those companies that have not yet
migrated to the payment method.  

Through a deal with purchase-to-pay solutions
provider Basware, suppliers that previously have had no access to
tools for delivering e-invoices, will be able to send their
invoices to the State Treasury of Finland via its wholly subsidised
Basware Supplier Portal.

The Finnish state announced a requirement in
early 2010 that state agencies and institutions are to only receive
e-invoices from their suppliers and its latest move aims to
increase the momentum of e-invoicing adoption and uptake around the
country.

The State Treasury of Finland estimates an
incoming paper invoice costs €30 ($43) to €50 for the receiving
company – based on findings from a report by e-billing provider
Billentis. Companies can reduce these costs to €10 by
semi-automating the invoicing process and reduce further to €1 by
fully automating the process – a significant level of savings when
applied across all invoices the government sends and
receives. 

A recent report from the Federation of Finnish
Financial Services also shows that by switching from paper to
electronic invoices, companies can benefit from a 43% time saving
per outgoing invoice and 50% for an incoming invoice.

“Our aim is to promote e-invoicing and the
benefits that both senders and receivers can gain, both fiscally
and environmentally,” said Keijo Kettunen, head of payment
transactions at the State Treasury of Finland.

“The burden for e-invoicing isn’t solely on
businesses – state agencies, such as ourselves, have a significant
role to play in promoting and leading the way for e-invoicing, and
making it as accessible and usable as possible for even the
smallest of businesses.”

The Finnish state agencies currently handle
13m sales invoices and 1.9m purchase invoices annually, and have
over 230,000 suppliers on its database.

Similar e-invoicing initiatives are also
taking place in Sweden and Denmark. In Mexico it is now mandatory
to issue invoices electronically if the invoice sum is higher than
MXN2,000 ($171), and, since 1 January 2011, businesses are required
to perform regulatory compliance checks for senders and receivers’
invoices.