E-billing
- EDI - Electronic Data Interchange
A NEW
flexible Approach
Ideally
we need an intelligent method to collect business documents
and selectively deliver in the most suitable format depending
on the type of document and the recipient's requirements.
Although an electronic delivery method is preferable we mustn't
preclude partners or customers, which want to stick with post
or fax.
E-Billing
– What type of document format do I use?
Assuming
you have a percentage of customers who will accept an electronic
document, e.g. an invoice, what is the best format to deliver
the invoice data in?
This depends
if you are moving to a true e-commerce type scenario or simply
looking to bill your customers more cost effectively. Invoices
can be delivered in many formats but most popular would be
either Adobe PDF or XML format. PDF is an image representation
of the invoice and is best suited to e-Billing, whereas XML
is more suited to a true electronic interchange of invoice
data. A good starting point is PDF, moving to XML if requested
at a later date.
How
does it Work?
Very few
business systems natively have the ability to deliver a document
intelligently via fax, email, print or EDI.
Software
solutions exist which take the standard business system data
(from Sage to SAP), create and format the document, then deliver
as required. Alternatively, hosted solutions are available
which provide the same service – in this scenario, you simply
deliver the raw data and the service provider delivers the
document to the recipient via post, fax email, web, EDI, etc.
This solution is particularly attractive where resource is
limited and a substantial volume of documents are still delivered
via post.
The
Next Step
The technology
side of e-Billing isn't complex, (as previously discussed)
and can be implemented quickly. However, the first thing to
do is to talk to your customers in order to find out who is
willing to accept an electronic invoice and collect their
email addresses/fax numbers. There are two schools of thought
here, these being:
• Implement
electronic billing by default; don't give your customers any
choice.
Only send
paper invoices if they scream.
• Ask
if they would be happy to accept an electronic invoice.
We suggest
starting with your largest customers (following the Pareto
80/20 rule), as they are the ones you send the largest proportion
of your invoices to.
Once the
email addresses or fax numbers have been collected they can
be added to your business system, if it has the facility to
hold these; or they can be held in a separate look-up table
or database (e.g. MS Excel, Access or SQL). Output Management
software can then use this information to automatically deliver
the document, using perhaps an account number to indicate
the delivery mechanism.
Will
My Customer Accept an Electronic Invoice?
Given
the above example most companies recognise it's worth looking
at but often dismiss the idea with the old nutshell, “Our
customer simply won't accept an electronic invoice”.
It's strange
that your customers won't agree to this when we all routinely
use the internet and it's very rare we receive only a paper
invoice. Have you actually spoken to them recently?
In our
experience, when companies ask the question they are surprised
by the numbers agreeing to electronic invoicing; we would
expect a typical uptake from 50 to 75%. Going back to our
example calculation above, that equates to a cost saving of
£9,000 per annum based on a 60% uptake rate. Just because
you have a few die-hard customers, don't hold your business
back based on their reaction. Convert the proactive ones now
and move the traditionalists later.
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