Xero, walking the talk by sending eInvoices to their own clients

[Visual: Introductory graphic appears with text "What does eInvoicing, mean for small business?" ]

[Visual: Xero logo appears with text “Here’s a Xero expert’s view."]

[Visual: Title card appears with text "Bridget Snelling, Country Manager, Xero New Zealand"]

[Audio: Bridget Snelling speaks]

At Xero we really are about supporting a small business community and helping it thrive and you know part of that is digitalization which is all about automating things that can be automated and then leaving humans to do the work that they need to do where technology can't assist.

I think there are great synergies between what we stand for as a tech company and what e-invoicing offers. It really is that simplification of something that is standard practice right now but e-invoicing provides a much simpler, faster way to send and receive invoices.

You know, we've got over 280 million business-to-business invoices sent in Aotearoa every year and I think MBIE have released some research that shows that invoicing could really help our economy by saving over four billion dollars and that's through efficiencies gained through automating invoicing. So  eInvoicing is a crucial step in helping our country become more productive.

[Visual: Graphic appears with text “What are the key small business benefits?”]

I think there are sort of what we would say four key benefits, really, to e-invoicing. And first of all, that's about making invoicing faster. So, you know, an e-invoice, because it's sent directly from accounting system to accounting system, it just means that you're reducing all that manual handling time of invoices.

[Visual: Graphic shows visual comparison of eINV process to PDF/ email process]

In addition to being faster, also obviously there's reduced admin time, so we don't have humans handling papers, and that reduces the potential for errors and risk around that as well.

Another key thing is that it's more secure. So because invoices are sent from accounting system to accounting system they can't be tampered with, they can't get lost in an inbox, you don't have to worry if you forward an invoice by email to the wrong person or when you're paying an invoice you key in accidentally the wrong account details. So it's a fantastic way to streamline the sending and receiving of invoices and the payment of invoices as well.

And then I think the fourth key benefit I would want to call out is the cost savings. It's reducing the the human resource required to process invoices, and you can quantify that.

So research shows it costs around $26 to send a paper invoice, $23 for an emailed invoice and under $10 for an e-invoice.

[Visual: Graphic with text "Invoice processing: Resource cost"]

[Visual: Paper invoice graphic appears on left side of screen with text “paper invoice: $26 average” underneath]

[Visual:PDF invoice graphic appears in center of screen with text “PDF invoice: $23 average” underneath]

[Visual: eInvoice logo/graphic appears on right side of screen with text “eInvoice: Under $10 average” underneath]

So it's a direct cost savings for small business as well.

[Visual: Graphic with text "How did eInvoicing integrate into Xero's own business?"]

I think the great thing about e-invoicing is that businesses of all sizes can benefit from it. So it doesn't matter if you're sending one or two or a hundred invoices every month, it's just automating a process that is otherwise quite manual and that gives you time back, regardless of how much time, it's still a time saving and I think that's crucially important for small businesses.

I guess the question is why wouldn't you? Even if you're only sending one or two invoices a month, you know with the benefits of it being more secure, faster, and actually costing you less, it's such an easy thing to do, it takes a couple of minutes to set up.

[Visual: Graphic with text "How did eInoicing integrate into Xero's own business?"]

So when we started on our own e-invoicing journey, we wanted to make sure that we didn't disrupt our billing to our customers because obviously we send monthly invoices and so any disruption would have been quite disastrous for us.I think the fact that our finance department barely even noticed and didn't complain at all about the change is testament to the fact that it was very smooth.

We also then integrated it into our corporate accounts payable system. And our accounts payable manager said, oh, well, we haven't received any, so I don't know. And in fact, we had been receiving e-invoices, but the fact that the process really just worked like clockwork meant that they hadn't noticed, they hadn't disrupted any workflow.

So it's a very easy step to take and the customers who are receiving and sending e-invoices find that it's so seamless. They just turn up in their accounts payable and in their bills and there's no manual intervention required.

[Visual: Graphic with text: “What do you think, are the learnings for NZ businesses - of all sizes?”]

The thing with eInvoicing is that we're right at the infancy of that journey in Aotearoa right now. And overseas, there are many countries where this is standard practice. I think one day we'll wonder why we ever took the time to manually forward invoices and make direct payments through our online banking. Obviously we're e-invoicing but there are other big businesses that have adopted e-invoicing and are on the journey.

[Visual: Cut to full screen graphic of (approved) large eInvoicers company logos (Xero, Countdown, OfficeMax, Westpac, KPMG, Robert Walters) building in one by one]

And what that means is that their customers, suppliers rather, many of whom who are small businesses will get paid a lot faster and that's why we're so passionate about big business getting on board with e-invoicing as well, just to speed up that payments journey and to automate the sending, receiving and payments process will really help our economy.

It's a great indicator that this is the direction we're heading in and to jump on board sooner rather than later to really reap the benefits of e-invoicing.

[Visual: Graphic with text “So what should small business be doing, right now?”]

So I think it's just about taking that first step on the journey. And then just like with Xero, it makes doing business much easier, you know, using an accounting software. Same thing with e-invoicing. It's just going to make something that is already part and parcel of what a business owner does every day, but in a much faster, much easier way.

And really that's what we want. We want to champion small businesses to be as successful as they can.

[Visual: Graphic of eInvoicing icon with text “Faster. Smoother. Safer. Take the next step, for Kiwi business.”]

[Visual: Introductory graphic appears with text “What’s Xero’s advice…to small business advisors?”]

[Visual: Xero logo in centre changes to eInvoicing icon.]

[Audio: Bridget Snelling speaks]

[Visual: Title card appears with text "Bridget Snelling, Country Manager, Xero New Zealand"]

At Xero we really are about supporting a small business community and helping it thrive and you know part of that is digitalization. That's something that's incredibly important to help with productivity gains and e-invoicing is a crucial step on that digitalization journey.

From an accountant and bookkeeping point of view, you know, an e-invoice makes reconciliation so much easier. You're not trying to track down, was this the right invoice and was this paid and reconciling it, it's actually all there, all automated and makes the task for a bookkeeper and accountant so much easier than previously. And so there are benefits absolutely for our end users, so our small businesses, but equally huge benefits for our partners, our accountants and bookkeepers, where their customers are actually using e-invoicing. It just makes the accountant and bookkeeper's job so much easier.

So I would encourage all accountants and bookkeepers to get on board themselves with the invoicing, but also to tell their customers the huge benefits that they can receive as well.

Even if you're only sending one or two invoices a month, you know with the benefits of it being more secure, faster, and actually costing you less, it's such an easy thing to do, it takes a couple of minutes to set up.

The thing with eInvoicing is that we're right at the infancy of that journey in Aotearoa right now. And overseas, there are many countries where this is standard practice.

It's a great indicator that this is the direction we're heading in and to jump on board sooner rather than later to really reap the benefits of e-invoicing.

So I think it's just about taking that first step on the journey and then just like with Xero, it makes doing business much easier. It's just going to make something that is already part and parcel of what a business owner does every day, but in a much faster, much easier way.

[Visual: Graphic showing eInvoicing icon with text “Faster. Smoother. Safer. Take the next step, for Kiwi business.”]

[Visual: Introductory graphic appears with text “See how Xero’s own business transformed its billing - and hardly knew the difference.” ]

[Visual: Xero logo in centre of graphic changes to eInvoicing icon.]

[Audio: Bridget Snelling speaks]

[Visual: Title card appears with text "Bridget Snelling, Country Manager, Xero New Zealand"]

With big business getting on board with e-invoicing, so the likes of obviously Xero, Spark, Bunnings and others, it's because they believe in the efficiency gains and in how important it is to speed up that payments journey and to automate the sending, receiving and payments process will really help our economy.

It's a great indicator that this is the direction we're heading in and to jump on board sooner rather than later to really reap the benefits of e-invoicing.

So when Xero started on our own e-invoicing journey, you know, obviously for us we are a big multinational company and although we've got very strong technology processes in place, any disruption to our own billing would have been pretty detrimental to our business.

And so we started off by actually testing it, piloting it with a group of staff who were also Xero customers.

And for three months we tested it to see if there would be any wrinkles we'd have to iron out but actually it went so smoothly. I think the fact that our finance department barely even noticed and didn't complain at all about the change is testament to the fact that it was very smooth.

Once we rolled out e-invoicing to make available for all our customers, we also then integrated it into our corporate accounts payable system. And again, we wanted to know would there be any issues. And our accounts payable manager said, oh, well, we haven't received any, so I don't know. And in fact, we had been receiving e-invoices, but the fact that the process really just worked like clockwork meant that they hadn't noticed, they hadn't disrupted any workflow. So that was a huge benefit and amazing as well.

The thing with the invoicing is that we're right at the infancy of that journey in Aotearoa right now. And overseas, there are many countries where this is standard practice. So it's really about building that critical mass and I think one day we'll wonder why we ever took the time to manually forward invoices and make direct payments through our online banking.

It really is that simplification of something that is standard practice right now but e-invoicing provides a much simpler, faster way to send and receive invoices. And that's really in line with what we believe at Xero, which is all about automating things that can be automated and then leaving humans to do the work that they need to do where technology can't assist.

I think in the short term it will be beneficial for saving time, and then for the economy once lots of businesses are using it. It will actually have a really great macroeconomic benefit as well.

[Visual: Graphic showing eInvoicing icon with text “Faster. Smoother. Safer. Take the next step, for Kiwi business.”]