Electronic Invoicing (or eInvoicing) is being rolled out, what does this mean for businesses?

As seen in Woopi News September 2022

Australia and New Zealand have been discussing adopting the Pan-European Public Procurement Online (Peppol) network for some years now. Peppol eInvoicing is a new channel for electronically sending invoices that is an accurate, efficient, and secure way to transact with your suppliers and buyers. This framework is designed to increase opportunities for businesses to integrate with the global trading environment utilising their preferred bookkeeping software. It is designed to decrease processing costs and human error by creating a direct exchange of invoices between suppliers and buyers.

In August the ATO ran eInvoicing week, which included a series of webinars co-hosted by some of the major bookkeeping and accounting software providers (Xero, QuickBooks, MYOB and Reckon One) as well as all the major accounting associations. Although not all software products are eInvoice ready, they are pushing businesses to get educated as its being rolled out. There is a How to start eInvoicing guide on business.gov.au/einvoicing.

So how does it work? Basically, in the future business won’t be sending their invoices to other businesses via email or print them out. They will be sent digitally via a Peppol access point connected to their bookkeeping software. The business would first need to ensure that the recipient of their invoice is also using eInvoice enabled software so that they can receive the invoice this way and import it into their bookkeeping software for payment. Overtime as more businesses move to the Peppol network, data entry of business to business invoices will be minimised and so will human error as all your bills will be imported into your bookkeeping software automatically enabling you to pay them more efficiently and store the electronic invoice without having to physically enter them into your bookkeeping software. Payments will also become more automated, meaning businesses won’t need to login into internet banking to pay bills.