Electronic invoices could save €10bn a year

From DutchNews

Dutch companies could save €10bn a year if they stopped sending invoices on paper and just used electronic mail, the entrepreneurs organisations VNO-NCW and MKB told Monday's Financieele Dagblad.

At the moment 95% of Dutch companies still send paper invoices even though it costs €30 per invoice compared with €6 for an electronic bill.

According to the two organisations, however, the existing EDI standard for electronic billing is much too expensive and they support the European Commission's plan to develop a new one.

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Striata has previously reported the following alluring statistics about electronic billing. The focus is mainly on the US market.

• eBilling adoption rates vary from 3 – 8% on average according to Chartwell’s 2005 report (Striata note: This is achieved after 2-3 years, using the traditional 'Pull' method of bringing consumers to a website).
• 90% of email users send and receive email every day, and 44% are on email constantly - DoubleClick’s 6^th Annual consumer Study, 2005
• 76% of consumers would prefer to receive bills via email than having to visit a website - Bank Technology News Research (04/2002)
• 69% of American households pay at least one bill online according to CheckFree in 2006
• 73% of Insurance customers are prepared to pay their bills electronically - MarketSearch Corporation, 2006 - Conducted for Computer Sciences Corporation

All the evidence points to the fact that organisations are slowly understanding the benefits to be achieved with electronic billing.