Blog: Disruptive innovations in e-invoicing: why Calvi chose to integrate PEPPOL

In today’s interconnected global community, it seems hardly fair to make your customers commit to manual labor when moving through the invoice-process, right? We envisage a world in which manual intervention in invoicing is in the past, where invoicing is fully automated, and customers receive the output they seek automatically. This article explores one of the initiatives that has been taking the world by storm and explains why we chose PEPPOL.

Connect once, reach all

In the current situation, customers receive their invoice and are required to act, whether it concerns logging-on to their online environment or registering the invoice in their bookkeeping systems. With PEPPOL, customers are not required to act at all, making it the imperative addition that takes digital invoicing to the next level. It connects your EBP portal to your customer’s bookkeeping systems and storage platforms, making the distribution of invoices and other business documents faster and easier than ever before. With PEPPOL, your customers will receive the output they need automatically. This speeds up internal processes, decreases operational costs and eliminates the need for manual intervention.

PEPPOL: the European standard

The Pan-European Public Procurement Online (PEPPOL) project was a project financed by the European Commission to facilitate international trade. The vision behind PEPPOL is that all companies and organizations should have the ability to communicate electronically with their business partners. Its goal was to make procurement easy and to provide a solid infrastructure for e-business (including e-invoicing). Today, PEPPOL provides a framework which is a one-stop-shop for enabling e-invoicing connectivity. There is no need for any parallel solutions and it will not enforce the migration of existing solutions.

The solution of PEPPOL is unique in the world and is increasing in usage and popularity. The way it works is relatively simple. The sender of the invoice first sends the invoice to its Access Point, which then sends the invoice to the Access Point of the receiver, which automatically recognizes the invoice. This automates the invoice process and makes the invoices more reliable, as the receiver knows the source of every invoice that enters its system. By implementing PEPPOL, invoicing becomes truly electronic.

There are currently 167 PEPPOL Access Points, of which a few are in Canada (1) and the US (2). Calvi is also an Access Point. Our goal is to facilitate the exchange of invoices for all enterprises, ranging from SoHo and SME to corporate enterprises. We have chosen to integrate PEPPOL because we believe it is the future of true e-invoicing, which is becoming increasingly important in our global interconnected community.

How CSPs and their customers will benefit from PEPPOL

Decrease operational costs and increase efficiency:

With PEPPOL, e-invoicing is made easy. It no longer matters if your customers receive 10, 20 or hundreds of invoices per month because everything is processed automatically. The result: less time spent on administration and lower operational costs. The saving potential for CSPs issuing the invoice can be as much as 59% per invoice and as much as 64% per invoice for the invoice recipients.

Drastically improve customer experience:

Improved customer experience might just be the most important benefit for CSPs. Customers often have negative feelings towards their telecom invoice. By taking away any negative feelings, you only leave room for positive feelings. This means that sometimes, less contact with your customers means more satisfaction. Electronic invoice delivery allows you to better serve your customers without any hassle.

Get paid on time:

With PEPPOL, invoices are delivered directly to your customer’s preferred (bookkeeping) system. As e-invoices are delivered the same day that they are sent, this allows for instant processing and faster payments.

Go green:

It has been estimated that paper invoices are responsible for 10 percent of all trees cut down worldwide on a yearly basis. Additionally, the creation of paper invoices uses as much energy each year as the average energy consumption of 20 million households. Considering the impact that paper invoices have, (this includes printed invoices for administrative purposes) it is easy to see why moving towards e-invoicing is an absolute must.

PEPPOL has plenty more benefits for CSPs. Would you like to know more? Don’t hesitate to contact us, we’d gladly share our vision.

About Calvi 

We believe in a world where all customers, no matter how big or small, receive clear and transparent invoices. We are motivated, hardworking and innovative perfectionists. We do what we love, and we love what we do. We innovate and develop our solution with passion and aim to share said passion with the world as we continue to expand our reach.

At Calvi, we are dedicated to delivering a best-in-class solution. Our extensive international expertise allows us to provide you with a solution that fits the needs of all your customers, no matter their size or location. Our dreams and ideas are continuously evolving, and we aim to never stop reaching for the stars. We believe that everyone is entitled to a clear invoice.