**According to one European Commission report lies that **Savings potential of electronic invoices Europe-wide at 40 billion euros annually. Both the sender and the recipient of e-invoices can save. A study by Billentis found out that the recipient 11.20 euros per e-invoice compared to a paper invoice saves.
Germany is still behind when it comes to electronic invoices
Around 500 billion invoices are sent worldwide every year. In 2014, 40 billion of these will likely be transmitted electronically. That’s at least 12.5 percent - and the trend is rising. It is interesting that Germany lags behind in global comparison. In Europe, the Scandinavian countries in particular are relying on electronic means. Globally, most invoices are sent electronically in South and Latin America (25 billion). This is surprising since Europe (6 billion) and North America (7 billion) are actually the larger economic area and they are likely to have a technological advantage. On the other hand, more and more larger companies are converting their systems to electronic invoicing because they have realized that massive savings are possible here.
The Federal Republic of Germany could save 6,500 million euros per year
If only e-invoices were used in Germany - especially in the public sector - the state would have potential savings of 6,500 million euros annually. 6,500 million euros corresponds to this year’s budget deficit. Simply by switching to electronic invoices, new debt could be stopped as early as 2014 and not just 2015. But as we all know, things work a little slower in the public sector.
Companies have great savings potential
But according to the studies, not only the state but also companies have great potential for savings. You can save an average of 6.60 euros per outgoing invoice. Incoming invoices only cost 6.00 euros instead of 17.00 euros. That’s a whopping 64% on every bill. There are several reasons for this potential savings:
- Lying time: Paper invoices are in the incoming or outgoing mail 75% of the time
- Transport: They are transported from A to B in 20% of time
- Editing: They are only processed 5% of the time.
In addition, processing is also faster because the invoices no longer have to be typed up or processed manually. Electronic invoices can be recorded immediately, saving massive amounts of time.
The environment benefits enormously from e-invoices
Added to this are the immense paper costs that can be saved on all sides. If we assume that an average invoice consists of 1.5 pages of A4 paper, then you could wrap the world around 76 times. That’s at least 484,196 kilometers. Converted into trees, this results in 1,071,004 trees. If you consider that some invoices still need to be changed after they have been printed out or are printed out multiple times, the number given above quickly increases to double or even triple.
Are you ready to automate your accounting?
As you can see, there are numerous good reasons to change your accounting accordingly. If you are interested in sending and processing your outgoing invoices electronically, we can recommend our partners Run my Accounts (Switzerland only), billomat and FreshBooks. These service providers offer a number of options that can help you save time and money when sending invoices in the future. You should carry out the following steps for incoming invoices to have more time for the important things:
- Store paper and e-invoices centrally in one place
- Have e-invoices automatically collected by GetMyInvoices
- Scan paper invoices or scan them with your mobile phone
- Synchronize your computer with your mobile phone and accounting software or tax advisor
We have already gone through all of these steps at Simplessus and can therefore save 10 - 15 minutes per invoice as well as higher costs for the tax advisor. Just using GetMyInvoices saves us around 5 minutes per invoice. With 200 documents per month, that’s 16 hours. This means we have 200 hours more time available each year. What potential for savings do you see in your accounting or when sending or receiving invoices? What problems or challenges do you see?
