Prepare for PEPPOL in Australia and New Zealand - Join the Basware Network

With over 1.2 billion invoices sent annually in Australia alone, the Australian and New Zealand governments have begun taking steps towards deploying PEPPOL, an internationally recognised e-invoicing framework. Here’s how you can prepare your organisation for PEPPOL and save money: both for your company and for your suppliers, with Basware’s help.

Issuing paper invoices is a heavily manual process which results in high costs and low efficiency. When human error and mistakes inevitably occur, delays follow suit: bottlenecking the process and delaying payments. Which is why those who adopt business standards like PEPPOL are on a mission to resolve those issues through invoice automation.

Important Dates to Note 

In late February 2019, the Australian and New Zealand Prime Ministers jointly announced their intentions to adopt PEPPOL as a Trans-Tasman e-invoicing framework to help increase business opportunities in and between their countries, while making it easier to integrate with the global trading environment. By mid-2019, the countries will finalise their PEPPOL membership. That means that by the end of the year, business will be required to start sending and receiving electronic invoices to each other using PEPPOL-compatible solutions.

What does the PEPPOL decision mean for businesses in Australia and New Zealand?

PEPPOL, the Pan-European Public Procurement On-Line e-invoicing framework, is already being used in 32 countries worldwide, mostly across Europe. With the adoption of PEPPOL in APAC the adoption of e-invoicing is quickly spreading and the change is definitely for the better.

According to the Digital Business Council, taxpayers have the potential to save 2.4 to 3 billion AUD by mandating e-invoicing. Overall, this could save the Australian economy 7-10 billion AUD. To translate that savings potential for businesses: buyers could save as much as 19AUD (€11.2) per invoice and suppliers could save up to 10.6AUD (6.6€). Considering there are over 1.2 billion invoices sent in Australia alone every year, that’s a tremendous amount of money to be saved!

The Prime Ministers for both Australia and New Zealand have already announced the creation of the Australia and New Zealand Electronic Invoicing Board (ANZEIB) to help the countries reach a joint total of $30 billion savings over the next 10 years.

How can Basware help ANZ-based companies?

Basware's plan is to be the first company to become a PEPPOL access point in Australia and New Zealand to help companies reach towards these savings goals. In fact, pilot studies conducted by Basware have already proven that the benefits go beyond cost-savings and efficiency to include visibility, transparency and compliance.

What this means is that when you’re a part of the Basware Network, you’ll be in the best position possible to adopt and continuously send and receive e-invoices in Australia and New Zealand. And since Basware already provides purchase-to-pay solutions for businesses in the current 32 PEPPOL countries, we’re familiar with the mandate and its best-practice adoption. In addition, the Basware Network also reaches many other countries that have not yet adopted PEPPOL. Your company will also be able to send and receive e-invoices with your business partners in these countries, seamlessly.

To prepare your business for the upcoming e-invoicing mandates in Australia and New Zealand, join the Basware Network. By joining, you will automatically become part of PEPPOL. This means other businesses can find you in the PEPPOL directory, giving your organisation the full ability and confidence to exchange e-invoices, as well as e-orders, with other businesses inside the directory.

Being a part of the PEPPOL directory also opens the door for you to discover greater business potential. And, once you are in the PEPPOL network, you can encourage your suppliers to send e-invoices more efficiently: which translates into major cost savings and efficiency gains for both you and your suppliers.