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Bravida is the latest recipient of the InExchange Environmental Award. We met the company on site in Stockholm (Hägersten). In two articles we tell about their environmental work and intensified focus on e-invoicing. This is the second part. Link to the first part can be found below this article.
Bravida's decision to accept only electronic invoices has created many benefits. The environmental benefit is accompanied by many other positives.
Kristoffer Hagberg, e-invoice manager at the company, highlights a number of examples: greater security, uniform appearance, faster delivery, significant time savings and fewer errors.
- The supplier also benefits. Just a few minutes after the invoice is sent to us, it can be certified and ready for payment on the due date," says Kristoffer.
The incoming invoice flow to Bravida is huge. According to Kristoffer Hagberg, who works in the company's accounts payable department, it is estimated that there are 1.7 million invoices per year.
Based on this figure, it is understandable that Bravida took action and since February last year has required all incoming invoices to be electronic. The new system was implemented in collaboration with InExchange. On the one hand, the condition of only e-invoices was implemented. On the other hand, the physical invoicing address disappeared. Suppliers no longer had a Bravida PO box to send to.
The change was thus introduced rather harshly. A certain amount of irritation was inevitable, but overall Kristoffer and his colleagues were mostly met with understanding.
- All in all, I think it was well received. As I have already mentioned, there is also a benefit for suppliers in sending e-invoices instead of PDF and paper. Processing is faster. Then the sustainability perspective is also important for them. "Working for a better environment concerns us all," says Kristoffer.
But saving trees and producing smaller quantities of paper pulp is above all a collective plus. Kristoffer Hagberg talks even more about the benefits obtained in everyday work.
Here Kristoffer summarizes the benefits he and his colleagues have experienced:
IMPROVING SAFETY
- Knowing that the invoice will arrive at the right place is a strong reason why we want e-invoices. With e-invoices, there is only one way to deliver and you can only enter the organization number, GLN number or Peppol ID. As the recipient, we know with 100% certainty that the invoice will always arrive and that it will go to our department. Paper and PDF invoices are less certain. A paper invoice may be addressed to a completely different department. The same goes for a PDF, which might be sent to a private email address. Then there's a risk that it won't be forwarded where it should be or, in the worst case, will be lost altogether.
SOLUTE APPEARANCE
- If it's PDF or paper, you get the invoices as they look from the supplier. They can come in all shapes and styles. An e-invoice, on the other hand, is code that is converted to the appearance we want to have with us and that all values in the invoice end up correctly in the system. The uniformity of the e-invoice makes it easier for us to manage. It doesn't matter which supplier has sent the invoice. They look the same. We know immediately what to look for on the invoice when we process them.
FREE DELIVERY
- If the invoice goes via regular mail, it takes a little time. It can take a number of days before it reaches us at Bravida. It's the same with PDF. When we receive the invoice, it goes to the subcontractor who performs the interpretation, from there it is sent to InExchange who arranges the conversion before it finally comes to us. These steps also take time. Estimated from one to two days. The difference is significant compared to e-invoices. In that case, in principle, the entire handling, from receipt to the invoice being certified and ready for payment, can be completed within 15 minutes.
FURTHER REMINDERS
- The problem of invoices going astray is something of a headache. When we receive collection demands and reminders, we naturally review them. The reason for non-payment is usually that the invoice in question has arrived in the wrong place, for example, it has been addressed to a department and has not been forwarded to where it should have been. Unfortunately, this is a recurring error. It is clearly noticeable when we go through reminders and collection demands. Fortunately, there will be less of this if the invoice is sent electronically..
LOWER RISK OF ERROR
- If you send paper or PDF, you always have the human factor involved because the data on the invoice has to be interpreted manually. Let's say a zero is entered too much. Then the amount will be completely wrong. And if you are really unlucky, it is also missed in our department, with the result that the wrong amount is certified and goes away. It is not often that there are errors in interpretation, but it happens. The e-invoice minimizes that kind of risk. Of course, theoretically, errors can also occur in an e-invoice, but then it is the supplier who made the mistake when they invoiced.
CONTINUED WORKFORCE
- We have had to spend a lot of extra hours in the department just because we have received paper and PDF invoices. Much because of mislabeling. We have work order numbers on our invoices. The number tells us where at Bravida the invoice is going. It has cost us a lot of time to direct invoices that have gone to the wrong place because they have been mislabeled or inadequately labeled. With e-invoices, the proportion of correctly labeled invoices has increased. It saves us many hours a day.
