Thursday 14th March, 2013

It's often been said that the best way to ensure a widespread and rapid take up of e-invoicing is to mandate it - that is, make it compulsory. The benefits of using e-invoicing have been long argued and it seems that the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has been convinced. OB10 has announced today that it has finalised actions to mandate electronic invoice submission from suppliers to the VA Financial Services Center (VAFSC). The transition supports the requirements of the Improper Payment Elimination and Recovery Improvement Act signed by President Obama on January 10, 2013. 

Since 2007, VAFSC has expanded electronic invoicing services through OB10, the electronic invoicing network. As Clint Loeser, VAFSC's Director of Financial Operations says “Electronic invoicing is the leading technological solution that eliminates error-prone manual processing and prevents improper payments [and] receiving e-Invoices from suppliers ensures a faster, more cost-effective and transparent payment process.” 

OB10 offers simple and secure solutions that comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to cut the cost and time of processing paper invoices. The benefits to suppliers from using electronic rather than paper invoicing include the:

• Delivery of invoices directly into the VAFSC payment system with routing nationally for approval
• Elimination of mail processing time, postage, and invoice receipt inquires
• Elimination of data errors, and lost or misplaced invoices
• Verification of invoice receipt and rejection through automated notification reports

With the business benefits of e-invoicing becoming increasingly relevant as organisations try to find ways to ride the economic uncertainty - an increase in its usage, or indeed mandating its usage is likely to be on the minds of many.