Monthly Archives: November 2022

22/11/2022

Using EDI to improve supply chain efficiency

Improving efficiency is one way for businesses to help battle rising costs and inflation. One efficiency improvement businesses are turning to is EDI.

Reduce costs and errors

The big efficiency with EDI is there’s no need for emailing or paper, which has some obvious benefits. As your number of orders grow, so does manual processing and hence, the need for more hands on deck. EDI does a lot of the heavy lifting for you through automating a lot of your processes. Studies have shown EDI can reduce the cost of a financial transaction by up to 90% and exchanging an invoice through EDI can even cost less than a cent. Automation from EDI can stop those awkward moments where your customer asks why your invoice numbers are wrong or if a supplier delivers the wrong products. EDI can result in a reduction in transactions errors by up to 40%.

Faster delivery times from suppliers

For any businesses, one of their biggest nightmares is not receiving goods when they need it. Any way to make the procure-to-pay cycle shorter is always a benefit. EDI sends trade documents directly between your software and your partners’. No more emails and manual inputting. EDI automation can speed up business cycles by 61%.

Better supply chain visibility

The best way keep track of all processes in the supply chain is through data. Businesses using EDI can find out whether a supplier can complete a purchase order. If you use advanced shipping notices (ASNs) with your suppliers, you can find out what a supplier is sending you and how they’re sending it. This can help your warehouse teams plan ahead for deliveries, so you can save time and resources. In fact, using ASNs can reduce receiving costs by up to 40%. Have more questions? Ask our experts by getting in touch below.

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17/11/2022

Could mandatory eInvoicing be on the cards? Business eInvoicing Right (BER) explained

The Government’s roll-out of eInvoicing started with a mandate for Federal Government agencies to adopt eInvoicing by July 1, 2022. Several State Governments have also taken the initiative to adopt eInvoicing, with one driving force being to support the Federal Government’s initiative and to help boost adoption among businesses – after all, what business wouldn’t want their invoices paid in 5 days? This has been a good step in eInvoicing adoption. In late 2021, around 10,000 businesses were registered for eInvoicing, but with over 2.4 million businesses in Australia, there’s still a long way to go.If we rewind to November 2020, Treasury released consultation paper that looked at a possible mandate for businesses to adopt eInvoicing, suggesting three different options:
  1. A phased mandate for all businesses
  2. A mandate for only large businesses
  3. No mandate.
34 companies made a submission on this paper, with all of them acknowledging the benefits of eInvoicing but many of them suggesting a well-considered approach, given costs can be incurred to implement eInvoicing and the time that may be required to both implement eInvoicing and change processes around it. Fast forward to December 2021, The Treasury released another consultation paper to the public, explaining the widespread benefits of eInvoicing if it was adopted at large. It mentioned the Budget’s inclusion of $15.3 million to help accelerate adoption of eInvoicing among Australian businesses. They sought feedback from stakeholders in the industry as to how to support business to adopt eInvoicing and to give businesses certainty that when they adopted eInvoicing, they’d be able to use it with their trading partners. This would be done through Business eInvoicing Right, or BER. Another 39 submissions were made, many of which included the same rhetoric as the previous ones – eInvoicing has huge benefits, but the Government must support businesses and make it easier, rather than force a mandate. Now back in late 2022, what’s happened? Well, a lot politically. We’ve had a change in Government, to start with. While eInvoicing is supported by both parties, we’ve not heard anything definitive on BER or an eInvoicing mandate for businesses. We’ve seen software companies like Xero, MYOB and Reckon all include eInvoicing in their products, which takes eInvoicing a long way – they represent a large majority of small to medium businesses, which make up a big portion of all businesses. There is a lot still happening in this space. So stay tuned.Interested in learning more about eInvoicing? Ask our experts by getting in touch below.

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