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Finance
What does e-invoicing mean
for your school?
It is not often that I hear news of a
new directive from the European
Commission that I can get excited
about. Frequently, new rules from the EU
are loaded with lots of administration or
additional layers of red tape that seem
more of burden than a benefit.
I was however talking with legal expert
Paul Henty recently who was telling
me of a new legislation that is set to
come into force by 2016, which will be
of interest and relevance to the way in
which invoicing is managed in contracts
governed by EU procurement directives.
In summary, the European
Commission has published a draft
directive for the creation of a
‘standardised e-invoicing system’. What
this means is that public sector bodies will
stop receiving paper invoices and instead
receive electronic invoices. It is also part
of a wider movement to create fully digital
public procurement processes by 2020.
This takes all paper-based invoicing
‘into the cloud’ meaning that at any time,
anyone authorised within your school will
be able to get instant access to all invoices,
without them having to be manually
printed and passed from pillar to post.
From what we have read, this directive
will be mandatory for public sector
organisations but to me this approach
could work just as well whether you’re
operating in a public or privately-run
school. In my eyes, this is real progress
and is one of the few EU regulations that
I welcome.
Having seen how many schools
currently manage their hundreds
of supplier invoices, I can see great
efficiencies for
all involved in
the supply chain.
It would mean
school staff can
spend more time
on more pressing
tasks than simply
chasing suppliers
for copy invoices
or credits.
So what actions
do you need to
consider in the
meantime?
It may be
advantageous
to start looking
into the range of
systems which are already available on the
market that support e-invoicing. There
are a number of systems available today
that not only capture supplier invoices
electronically, but also enable you to
undertake greater analysis on the resulting
data. For example, using the invoice data
information it can automatically update
stock control lists, or log the information
against pre-determined budgets, meaning
at any time you can visibly track your
budget without fussing with spreadsheets.
You can set budgets of each cost
centre and the invoices are automatically
allocated to that cost centre. It can then
graph how your expenditure compares
to your budget; and you don’t even
have to enter any values – it does this
for you automatically. If you wanted to
place an order with your supplier, the
system knows what you have purchased
and allows you to enter quantities and
you can email this to your supplier. In
fact, the list of automated management
information and tools are almost endless,
especially with outputting to graphs and
charts making annual reporting easier to
compute.
Fundamentally, this level of analysis
and budget tracking can only help
towards supporting schools in not
only keeping track of invoices but in
taking greater control of their overall
procurement management. So, perhaps
the bureaucrats deserve a pat on the back
this time around.
Shabaz Mohammed,
Managing Director,
Pelican Procurement
Services.
Summer 2014 | 85