With effect from 1 January 2017 states The central government has made e-invoicing compulsory for its (new) suppliers. In this way, the central government is playing a pioneering role in firmly establishing e-invoicing in the Netherlands and ensuring that businesses switch to this modern method of invoicing at an accelerated pace.
Every year, the central government receives around 1.5 million invoices. These invoices are processed manually, which not only takes a lot of time (and therefore costs money), but also increases the risk of errors. With the help of electronic invoicing (or e-invoicing for short), this manual processing is a thing of the past.
An e-invoice is more than just a PDF file
There is a significant difference between a PDF file and an e-invoice. Although in both cases a PDF file is sent (by email), with e-invoicing the PDF is supplemented with all sorts of information that can be read by, for example, an accounting software package. This includes details such as the invoice amount, VAT and the supplier’s address.
By making this information available digitally to the accounting software, a large proportion (and in many cases even all) of the manual data entry has become unnecessary.
It’s a win-win situation
The convenience of automatic (and also faster) processing and the increased accuracy bring significant benefits to the recipient of the e-invoice. But there are advantages for the sender too. In many cases, the invoicing process can be optimised, and there are no longer any printing or postage costs. In short: e-invoicing offers benefits for everyone.
Getting started with e-invoicing isn’t difficult
Although sending PDF files containing additional information may sound a bit complicated or technical, in practice it is often much easier than you might think to get started.
Your accounting software may already offer these options, or you may be using the administrative services from VWGNijhof. In the latter case in particular, e-invoicing is just a mouse click away.