4 tips to (successfully) prepare for e-invoicing mandates

As of July 1, 2024, all large companies will be required to send and receive invoices in electronic format. Basware looks at the main steps and questions to ask yourself to prepare for this important and structuring reform.

1. Assessing your tools

The first step is to assess your company's level of maturity in terms of dematerialisation of sending or receiving invoices and taking stock of your existing tools:

• Have you already implemented an electronic invoicing (customer invoices) and/or a supplier invoice processing solution?
• If not, we recommend that you quickly look for a solution that is adapted to your size, your needs, and your organisation. And check that the company that publishes it is doing everything possible to ensure that it is one of the partner dematerialization platforms (PDP) approved by the Administration.
• If so, what is your provider's roadmap for complying with the requirements (connection with the public billing portal, invoice formats, archiving arrangements, data security...) and has it initiated steps to become a PDP?
• Is the use of this type of solution widespread throughout your company? Or partial?
• Are you satisfied with your solution or are you considering changing?

2. Map your customers, suppliers, invoices, processes and flows

The second step in preparing for this reform is to conduct a complete mapping of all stakeholders, your current invoice management processes (both inbound and outbound) and invoice flows:

• How many customers and suppliers do you have? What is their level of maturity in terms of electronic invoicing? What is their size and, for your suppliers, when will they be required to issue invoices in electronic format?
• How many invoices do you send and receive per year?
• What electronic invoice formats and sending channels (paper invoices, PDF, EDI, etc.) are used by your customers or suppliers? And in what proportion?
• What is the breakdown of invoices according to their nature (B2B, B2C, B2G, national, European, international)?
• Do you have all the information concerning your suppliers and customers, and in particular their SIRET and intra-community VAT numbers?
• What are your current processes for managing outgoing and incoming invoices, and how can you optimise them?

3. Take advantage of the reform to choose a suitable platform

Beyond complying with regulatory requirements, mandatory electronic invoicing is an opportunity to go further by digitising and automating your customer and supplier accounting processes. It is therefore important to ensure that your partner (current or future) is able to meet the requirements of this reform, as well as your short- and medium-term needs.

Among the selection criteria to obtain the best return on investment, we provide you with a list (not exhaustive) of the main points of attention to take into account:

• Can the solution process 100% of your invoices? Including, until 2026, paper invoices and PDF invoices that do not contain structured data (scanned invoices or invoices that do not comply with the Factur-X standard)?
• How much automation does it provide to match invoices with purchase orders or deliveries, and to process invoices without purchase orders?
• Does it integrate with your ERP system(s)?
• Will it allow you to drastically reduce the number of exceptions to be managed manually?
• Is it connected with other e-invoicing operators, so that your suppliers can send invoices from the networks they already use?
• Does it guarantee compliance with the rules for receiving, sending and archiving invoices, as well as with the tax regulations of each country in which your company is located?
• Will it provide you with 100% visibility on your expenses to better manage your cash flow and working capital?
• Is it able to analyze the data of your accounting processes to continuously improve and automate them?
• Does it correctly process invoices when purchase orders are created in a third-party purchasing system?
• How much automation does it incorporate to identify fraud risks?

4. Don't forget the human aspects...

This type of project involves many departments (accounting/finance, IT, sales, legal, etc.) and takes several months to complete. Do your teams have the skills, knowledge and time to successfully carry out this transformation that will affect your entire organisation starting in 2024? It is essential to anticipate the needs in terms of training, recruitment and support for change by consulting firms or technology.

Learn more about mandatory e-invoicing in France from 2024 , or contact us to discuss your needs with our experts.