Companies spend millions of dollars per year just trying to match incoming receivables with invoices sent. The time, the confusion, the lack of a concrete audit trail, and OH! Did I mention the time? Paperless invoicing, also known as electronic or eInvoicing is indeed the solve-all.
Because solutions like electronic invoices are both sent and typically paid against online, there exists a convenient, secure, and bulletproof audit trail at every step of the way. Online account centers allow you to see who approved the invoice to be sent, who sent it, when the email notification was opened, when your customer logged in, if there was a disputed item and what that electronic discussion entailed, and of course, when your customer scheduled a payment. Conveniently, a PDF image of the actual invoice itself (as it came out of your accounting package) also travels with each electronic step, providing a point of reference for each new person to view and consult(and even print and file if they’re in the mood to do things the old fashioned way), should they have questions.
Electronic invoicing also allows electronic payments to be made directly against the invoice sent, meaning that the process of muddling through trying to match partial payments, late payments, or those with missing invoice numbers in the remittance info is truly a thing of the past. Hooray progress...hooray eInvoicing!