Invoice management: the 4 benefits of collaborative platforms
Published on 26 August 2021
Many documents enter the company's management workflow every day, including invoices. Each receipt requires efficient sorting and data transfer to the appropriate department to integrate the payment validation process and archiving. This requires time and accuracy. To streamline data collection, validation and transfer, collaborative platforms are the best solution. Presentation.
1. Manage different electronic invoices formats
This is the first difficulty faced by the department that receives invoices: sorting out the increasing number of incoming electronic flows and managing the diversity of invoices formats. For the moment, due to the lack of harmonization, several technologies coexist: some companies dematerialize their invoices via EDI, others via electronic signature. Some use a SaaS service, others rely on business software, licensed or developed in-house. Often, they are forced to mix technologies to be able to exchange with all their partners, which reduces the efficiency of the processes. To facilitate this multi-format management, collaborative platforms provide a single entry point between your system and that of your partners: this solution is capable of managing document flows of all kinds, adapting them to your preferred formats, your business expectations and your management rules.
2. Monitor incoming invoice flows
Another difficulty for the company, especially for those who receive a large number of invoices: the risk of fraud. False suppliers, identity theft, cybercrime... No company is safe from false requests for funds, which requires a reinforcement of controls and a great vigilance. The public authorities require companies to find out about suppliers before the first order and to ensure that they are listed in the company's database. Here again, collaborative platforms can help you manage this tedious obligation by allowing you to find all the information about suppliers via centralized databases provided by specialized companies. They also ensure that suppliers are viable (supplier identity, accuracy of bank details, collection of due diligence documents...).
3. Set up a reliable audit trail
Since 2014, the tax authorities have been asking companies to set up a Reliable Audit Trail (RAT) for their invoices, i.e. to produce documentation on demand, allowing the verification of the life cycle of a transaction, from its origin (e.g. the purchase order) to its end (the archiving of the invoice). This allows him to check the reality of the transactions and the VAT operations. Despite this obligation for electronic invoices made without EDI or electronic signature and for paper invoices, companies still use it too little... The explanation is probably due to a lack of knowledge of this regulation, and to its tedious implementation. However, the digital solutions of the collaborative platforms allow to generate links automatically between documents (orders, delivery notes, invoices), and to archive them grouped, making it easy and fast to respond to the RAT constraint.
4. Benefit from a 24-hour assistance
Electronic invoicing has undergone numerous regulatory changes in recent years and it is sometimes difficult to keep track of them. Entrusting the management of your dematerialized invoices to a recognized collaborative platform ensures that you are always in compliance with the regulations in force. In addition, most solutions offer a 24/7 hotline for maintenance at all levels: preventive, corrective, evolutionary and regulatory. A strategic advantage for the company, which can then focus on its core business.
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