The Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, Kate Carnell today welcomed Treasury’s public consultation on how e-invoicing arrangements can be best managed, saying it makes small businesses more productive by streamlining payments and improving cash flow.
"Around 1.2 billion invoices are exchanged in Australia every year; the potential benefit to the Australian economy in switching to e-invoicing is $28 billion over 10 years," Ms Carnell said.
"The benefits of e-invoicing are significant for small businesses – it means quicker payments and reduced administration costs.
"Research shows it costs $30.87 to process a paper invoice, $27.97 per PDF invoice and only $9.18 per e-invoice; a significant saving.
"E-invoicing helps to eliminate processing errors as your core business details are stored online and can include a direct link to your bank account for payments.
"Research reports around 20% of invoices today are sent to the wrong person and 30% contain incorrect information – delaying payment.
"E-invoicing also reduces the time from creating an invoice to getting paid as the sending and payment is automatic, which increases business productivity.
"We will continue to advocate digitalisation, and its many applications, so small businesses can realise the benefits of participating competitively in the digital economy."
