MANAGING EDI IS NOW MANDATORY, BUT PDF REMAINS A NECESSITY
At the moment it is still possible for New Zealand businesses to send and receive image-based PDF invoices by email; however, with growing government legislations mandating structured electronic invoice exchange, PDFs may soon be no longer sufficient.
Early in 2019, the Australian and New Zealand governments adopted the Pan European Public Procurement Online (PEPPOL) interoperability framework for e-Invoicing. At the same time, the Australia New Zealand Electronic Invoicing Board (ANZEIB) was established to set the direction for the rollout of e-Invoicing.
E-invoicing or Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), as its name infers, is the process by which data is exchanged between businesses in a commonly agreed electronic format. The main benefit of EDI technology is that it allows full automation with a smooth and secure exchange of messages between companies, making documents computer readable. This boosts efficiency, simplifies transactions and increases cost savings.
The New Zealand Government has said ‘It’s time to start preparing your business for e-invoicing, so that you can take advantage of this technology too.’
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However, exchanging EDI-only files may not be suitable for all businesses. Small and medium businesses often struggle to manage EDI, whereas PDFs can easily be created from most ERP systems. Additionally, for companies of all sizes, invoice content must be available in a human readable format for AR and AP departments to validate it. It’s not a one or the other situation — for businesses to be successful, they must do both EDI and PDF.
Finding the right partner from a legal, process and technical point of view is essential.
Fujifilm cloud solution offers the ability to both generate an EDI file from a PDF and format an EDI file into a PDF for outbound/inbound transport modes. It can also process any EDI format to comply with international regulations.
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Accounting automation software provider Esker’s worldwide COO provides valuable insights into the challenges, advantages and inevitabilities of the move from PDF to EDI.
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