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E-INVOICING
18
E-invoicing is not new – electronic
invoices have been sent using
electronic data interchange (EDI ) for
many years – but as more businesses
address business processes, there
is more impetus behind integrated
solutions that automate the sending,
acceptance, processing, approval and
payment of invoices.
For resellers, e-invoicing represents
an interesting new sales opportunity,
especially in the UK, which is lagging
behind the rest of Europe in its adoption.
Even so, Keith Howell, Business Generation
Director at Ricoh, doesn’t expect the
channel to adopt it overnight.
“There will be different levels of
take-up. IT resellers will be much more
comfortable selling a cloud-based service
than many traditional dealers operating
in the print space, for whom this hasn’t
historically been core business,” he said.
He added that for this reason Ricoh had
decided to implement a three-phased roll-
out of its e-invoicing solution that would
enable channel partners to familiarise
themselves with the technology and gain
first had experience of its benefits.
“We’re taking them on a journey,” he
said.
This started with Ricoh’s own
implementation of e-invoicing – it has now
transferred around 80% of its channel
partners onto the e-invoicing platform
– and continued with the adoption of
e-invoicing by the channel. This spring
the roll-out enters a new phase with the
piloting of a solution targeted at SMEs that
will ultimately be sold through the channel.
“It can be a very complex product so
what we’ve done is to create a simplified
transactional model that is both easy to
sell and use,” explained Howell.
“There is no real cost per entry and it
has a simple pay-per-click focus, which is
a concept that the channel is comfortable
with. We believe that once the pilot reveals
it’s a low maintenance, easy to understand
service with fantastic end-user benefits, the
take-up will be significant.”
In the final stage of the roll-out, Ricoh
resellers will start selling the service to
their customer base. The dealer’s margin
opportunity is based on the cost charged
for each click: the more customers they
bring on board, the bigger the reward.
Howell added: “We’re hoping for a fast
take-up by the middle of this year. But it’s
important to have that proof of concept
first; we’re making sure our dealers have
the experience, credibility and confidence
to sell and support it.”
A fully automated solution
Canon, too, is actively pursuing the
purchase-to-pay market, of which
e-invoicing is just one part. The company
has just announced a partnership with
enterprise purchase-to-pay specialist
Palette, which will involve the integration of
PaletteArena, Palette’s complete purchase-
to-pay suite, with Canon’s document and
image processing technology.
Daniel Seris, European and UK Marketing
Manager for Canon, said that e-invoicing
solutions like EDI, invoice networks or even
Ending the paper chase
XML PDFs address only part of the problem
– receipt of the invoice and data entry –
which any on-premises capture technology
could do anyway, and that Palette is a much
more comprehensive solution.
“The Palette suite essentially starts to
deliver its benefits around better control
of the company’s cash position after the
invoices are uploaded into the system, by
providing visibility over all Purchase Orders
and invoices and their status, not only in
terms of approval, but also when they are
due for payment. Palette is a complete
finance and procurement suite that sits
on top of the ERP. Whilst the information
remains on the ERP, the user experience is
via Palette,” he said.
Seris added that Palette integrates with
accounting, information and business systems
to automate and streamline accounts payable
activity across an organisation. “This fully
automated, web-based, digital purchase-to-
pay platform improves invoice management
from receipt to payment at around one-tenth
of the cost,” he said.
To meet increasing demand for
software-as-a-service, Canon will also sell
the PaletteOnline cloud-based purchase-to-
pay solution to European customers that
want to drive efficiency in their financial
and back-office processes while benefiting
from the flexibility of monthly service fee
payments instead of upfront payment
for a system. PaletteOnline gives any
size company a fast route to easier, more
flexible invoice processing.
“With Palette, we can now offer fully
integrated purchase-to-pay solutions
that quickly deliver real efficiency gains
and ROI, not only by replacing paper-
based routines but by changing the way
financial departments operate, therefore
streamlining accounting and buying
processes,” explained Seris.
Because the solution sits outside
the traditional printing market, Seris
said that the rollout would be “careful,
and dependent on the capabilities of its
partners”, adding that Canon was already
engaging with partners across Europe and
helping to train salespeople in how to
promote and sell a fully automated, digital
purchase-to-pay platform.
He claimed that a couple of
opportunities had already come through
UK partners.
...e-invoicing
represents
an
interesting
new sales
opportunity,
especially in
the UK...
With both Ricoh and
Canon launching new
solutions, e-invoicing
represents an additional
revenue opportunity for
dealers
