Why e-invoicing streamline Accounts Payable (AP)

The main responsibility of the Accounts Payable (AP) department is to ensure all outstanding invoices from its suppliers are processed and paid on time. Processing an invoice includes data entry of important data from the invoice and feeding it into the company’s financial system. E-invoicing makes AP process faster and less costly by eliminating the need to record data manually from invoices to accounting systems.

An e-invoice can be defined as structured invoice data issued in Electronic data interchange (EDI) or XML formats. These documents can be exchanged in a number of ways including EDI, XML, or CSV files. They can be uploaded using emails, web applications, or sFTP sites. This streamlines the process while positively impacting sustainability efforts. Some companies have their own in-house e-invoicing process; however, many companies hire a third-party company to implement and support e-invoicing processes and to archive the data on their own servers.

To simplify e-invoicing formats and delivery, a file extension .INV could be used, which would make .INV files easily openable in accounting software using standards-compliant XML format.

Refer to Essony to learn more.