UK lags behind the rest of the world in its use of e-invoicing

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: UK lags behind the rest of the world in its use of e-invoicing.

Research from Basware, provider of purchase-to-pay solutions, suggests that UK companies have fallen way behind their European and global counterparts in their use of e-invoicing technology. While only 18 per cent of UK companies use this technology, 45 per cent of European businesses are already taking advantage of streamlined operations through using these tools; and globally, 35 per cent of companies use e-invoicing.

Despite a low take-up, there is a recognition that organisations need to embrace this technology. The survey, which polled almost 1,500 finance professionals globally also showed that three quarters of UK experts believe that improvements in processing around e-invoicing could help them to achieve their streamlined operational efficiency targets. This figure was 50 per cent for the rest of the world, more of whom have effective processes in place already.

Commenting on the statistics, Andrew Jesse, UK Managing Director of Basware said: "Improving cashflow is a critical issue for every business in the UK and abroad as is improving efficiency. It's a frustrating situation when so many British companies recognise what they need to do in order to make significant improvements, but either don't do it or don't know how to go about it. In reality, e-invoicing is an easy change that companies can and should be making."

"Organisations switching to e-invoicing can expect to see anything up to and beyond a 50% saving in time. They can also reduce the cost of processing a single invoice down to around 1 from anywhere up to 30 through full automation of the process."