Mandate trackers, endless meetings, webinars, multiple proposals and still no clear answer on what the right e-invoicing solution actually looks like. Choosing a solution which is not fit for your organisation can lead to significant implementation complexities, reliance on external implementation consultants and unexpected costs. Implementing the wrong solution for your organisation can feel like pushing a square peg through a round hole.

Many organisations start by asking which software to buy based on parameters such as "we need a solution for country x and y", " affordability is essential", or "it needs to have good user interface". This is risky as this does not consider the organisational requirement.

A more useful starting point is to ask what the business needs. The right approach depends less on the government mandate itself and more on organisational factors: invoice volume, billing scenarios, system landscape and internal capacity. Two companies subject to the same national rules can legitimately choose very different e-invoicing solutions.

What should shape the decision?

Before choosing an e-invoicing solution, asking practical questions is essential, such as:

• What does our global e-invoicing roadmap look like? How many countries and legal entities are involved, and how quickly is the mandate landscape changing? What do we need to do, when and where?
• How many invoices do we issue and receive in the relevant countries, what do our operations look like, and how complex are the invoice flows and business scenarios?
• What does our enterprise resource planning (ERP) landscape look like? How ready is our current environment, do we have any gaps, is our master data accurate and complete?
• Do we have internal capacity to own and maintain the solution and to monitor ongoing mandate changes? Do we need external support?

These types of questions will help drive the decision-making process around selecting a suitable solution for your organisation.

What types of e-invoicing solutions are available?

There are many e-invoicing solutions ranging from fully integrated technologies to more process-based solutions such as a managed service. All solutions aim to address the same issues eg e-invoicing compliance. From a technical and process perspective however, they can be very different. It is important to understand these differences and how they impact your organisation.

The right solution depends on many factors: there is no single correct answer to what solution is ‘best’.

• An integrated solution can work well for high invoice-volume businesses as it gives more control, but still requires internal capability for maintenance, updates, exception handling and ongoing mandate monitoring.
• Equally, a managed or hybrid model is often more realistic for multi-country groups or organisations with limited bandwidth. This model can reduce day-to-day operational load while keeping tax and process oversight inside the company.
• Full integration is not always required. A flexible, market-by-market approach under a central umbrella can be both compliant, more practical, and significantly cheaper and faster.
• Urgency matters when go-live dates are close or ERP work is delayed. An interim solution is frequently needed so compliance is not blocked while the longer-term model is still being built.

Vendor selection is one of the most crucial aspects of e-invoicing. The most resilient approach is to choose a solution that works best with your organisational requirements.

Would you like to discuss how these options typically play out in the real world, and understand best practices? To find out more, please get in touch with Christian Balk or your usual RSM adviser.

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