Skandia fastigheter was attracted by the overall solution

It was above all the overall solution that attracted Skandia Fastigheter when the company decided on Inexchange.
- "We realized that based on the service we started with, we could develop it further both in terms of receiving and sending e-invoices," says Eva Englund.
That observation proved to be of the utmost importance.
Today, all of Skandia Fastigheter's invoice flow - as far as scanning - goes via Inexchange.

The starting shot that Eva Englund looks back on was fired in 2015. That's when Skandia Fastigheter signed its first agreement with Inexchange. An agreement that concerned the recipient service for e-invoices.
- "We wanted to bring in more suppliers of electronic invoices. InExchange had a good package to offer and good references. Their concept was something that could be developed further, which made it interesting. We liked the overall solution," she says, adding about the actual entry point:
- "As far as I remember, we were up and running quickly. The introduction went quickly.

Trio with project responsibility

The finance department at Skandia Fastigheter consists of around 20 employees. Eva Englund works exclusively with supplier invoices. We meet Eva and two of her colleagues in a rewarding video conversation about digitization in their field of activity. The other two are Monica Mellbing and Ingela Nilsson. Monica focuses on accounts receivable and is one of the two managers of Property Management, a real estate management system. Ingela is an accounting manager and also a manager. Like Monica, she has an organizing role in the so-called pm3 model, which is a management model for system management.
What the trio have in common is that they have had, and still have, project responsibility in Skandia Fastigheter's work to digitize the company's incoming and outgoing invoices.

Solution-oriented approach

This responsibility has in turn meant that all three have been involved in the stages that followed the launch - but at different stages. As the person ultimately responsible for outgoing invoices, Monica Mellbing was a key person when the exhibitor service from Inexchange was to be integrated with Property Management.
- "I was impressed with how smoothly it went. A very good routine was set up for us, Monica says and continues:
- "One service I appreciate is the portal (Inexchange Network). On the one hand, I can go in and do things myself and on the other hand, I can follow the invoices. I can see when an invoice or a rental notice has been sent. The fact that you have such a good overview is very good.
Monica also says she was impressed by the solution-oriented mentality she encountered. During the process of linking Property Management and the exhibitor service, the Inexchange project manager in question remembered that they had an older interpretation of a file format (FastNet) for exactly that business system available in their database. All that was required was an update.
- It is not often when you contact a supplier that they say: "wait, I think we have a solution at hand". Everyone usually says they have to build a solution. I'm not used to someone starting to look at existing solutions. To be met with that service-oriented attitude felt very positive," says Monica.

Switched to standard format

Another project that has been carried out more recently is that Skandia Fastigheter has changed its invoice format. The company has switched to Peppol BIS Billing 3, the standard that will be the only recommended e-invoice format for public sector organizations and their suppliers from April 2021.
- "The format we had from the start, and in which we received supplier invoices, was not a standard format. It was a kind of customization format that did not contain all the information," explains Ingela Nilsson and describes the ideas that were circulating before the change was implemented:
- "Since we are reviewing the entire management of our supplier invoices, it was natural to ask: how do we make it more digital? Our accounts payable staff, as well as the business as a whole, would benefit from having standard processes. This in turn required us to move more and more to e-invoices and to an invoice format that contains the information we need. That's why we chose to move to a standard format.
What information was specifically missing?
- "There was a lot, I would say. References, for example," says Ingela.
- Above all, the employees who are out in the business reacted. In projects, for example. They felt that they did not receive all the information on the invoices when they were in contact with the suppliers. What they actually received was a copy of the invoice. They reacted to the difference between what we had in our systems and the information we received on the paper invoices. There was simply a lot of missing information.

Faster payment and more time

It is clear that digitization has had positive effects on both the traffic for outgoing and incoming invoices.
- "What we have noticed regarding the e-invoice flow is that we see faster payments," emphasizes Monica Mellbing, and Eva Englund can also testify to similar time gains regarding supplier invoices:
- "We receive the invoices faster than when they arrived by post. This gives us more time to go through them, which we often need. It's a big advantage for us.