INTHEBLACK February 2023 - Magazine - Page 47
“That’s a lot of time SMEs could
be spending on other activities that’ll
grow their business.”
MYOB’s modelling shows
e-invoicing allows SMEs to achieve
cost savings of A$11,000 every year,
by moving away from paper invoicing
and through the reduction of manual
entry.
“We’re delighted to see awareness
of e-invoicing has increased
significantly since we last took a
‘temperature check’ in January 2021,”
Lea says.
MYOB found that 64 per cent of
SMEs had heard of e-invoicing when
it conducted its survey in July 2022,
compared with 43 per cent from the
survey at the start of 2021.
“Now’s the time to turn that
awareness into action and take
advantage of this huge cost and timesaving opportunity,” Lea says.
A LOGICAL EXTENSION
Alan FitzGerald, founder of
Practice Connections Advisory, is a
technology consultant specialising in
finding software solutions, services
and practices suitable for business tax
and accounting.
He consults to the accounting sector
and says e-invoicing is now something
that most accounting computer
systems can readily facilitate.
“E-invoicing is a logical extension
of what’s happening in the market,
and it will benefit any organisation
that uses it.”
For accounting practitioners,
FitzGerald says there are many
benefits in helping clients to
transition to e-invoicing to reduce
manual data entry, increase accuracy,
achieve quicker payment times, and
to minimise the risk of fraud.
“The ATO has calculated that up
to A$28 billion can be saved over
10 years through the use of
e-invoicing systems.”
The ATO has been tasked with
managing the Peppol network in
Australia as the Australian Peppol
Authority. Although it accredits all
access point providers, the regulator
does not view invoice data or operate
as a software service provider in the
e-invoicing system. It also does not
provide any hardware.
“The ATO has calculated that up to
A$28 billion can be saved over 10 years
through the use of e-invoicing systems.”
ALAN FITZGERALD, PRACTICE CONNECTIONS ADVISORY
John Delaney, managing director
of Australian-based B2B integration
service provider MessageXchange,
which has partnered with MYOB
to provide its ATO-accredited
e-invoicing solution, says many
businesses are yet to make the switch
to e-invoicing because they do not
feel they know enough about it.
“E-invoicing takes no more than
a couple of hours to explore the
options and get set up.”
Delaney says spending some time
to give e-invoicing a try could end
up being one of the best business
decisions a small business can make.
FASTER PAYMENTS
The MYOB survey has found
the top three advantages listed by
business respondents when asked
what they considered to be the main
benefits of e-invoicing were faster
processing (58 per cent), a reduction
in administration time (51 per cent),
and a reduction in time to payment
(44 per cent).
Rossel says the ability to receive
faster payments is a major benefit
for businesses using e-invoicing.
“The Commonwealth has a
payment policy of five days for
eligible e-invoices. These faster
payments are facilitated by clean
data going straight into accounting
systems, and that direct data entry
also facilitates faster payment.”
Rossel says the ATO is working
with government agencies to help
them apply the five-day payment
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