eInvoicing Adoption Leaders Group minutes – 19 July 2021

Minutes from the 3rd eInvoicing Adoption Leaders Group (eALG) meeting held on 19 July 2021.


Meeting details

Date

  • Monday, 19 July

Time

  • Wellington, 2:00pm – 4:00pm
  • Melbourne, 13:00pm – 2:00pm

Location

  • Pastoral House, 25 The Terrace, Wellington
  • MS Teams meeting

Attendence

Chair

  • Stewart McRobie, CFO Finance and Performance, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE)

Group Members

* Attended remotely

  • Caroline Rawlinson, CFO, MYOB *
  • Emma Dobson, Independent *
  • Jeff Martin, Chief Technology Officer, B2BE *
  • John Eastman, New Zealand MD, Oracle
  • John Mazenier, New Zealand Country Manager, Technology One *
  • Kris Gerken, Head of Finance, Placemakers / Fletcher Building *
  • Marc Rivers, CFO, Fonterra *
  • Neil Padley, Head of Finance Shared Services – Corporate, Woolworths NZ (Countdown) *
  • Phil Cameron, MD, SAP New Zealand, SAP *
  • Scott Burgess, Delivery Unit Lead - Billing & Collections, Spark *

Substitutes

  • Chris Greenough, Director, Global Service Operations - Fonterra *
  • Morna Macfarlane, Head of Accounting Services, Accounting Services, Group Treasury, Auckland Council (late substitution) *
  • Philip Leath, GM Tax and Procurement, ANZ *
  • Quintin Pretorius, Senior Manager, Operations Enablement, Westpac (late substitution) *
  • Richard Marshall, Manager Financial Accounting and Transactional Services, WCC
  • Simon Foster, Head of Product Integration, Xero *

Secretariat 

  • Andrew Cooke, eInvoicing Product Manager, MBIE

Apologies / Not in attendance

  • Alistair Smith, CFO (NZ), IAG Insurance
  • Craig Hudson, MD, New Zealand & Pacific Islands, Xero
  • Ian Hankins, CFO, Westpac
  • John Healy, CFO, ACC
  • Nathan Marsh, CFO, Foodstuffs
  • Peter Gudsell, CFO, Auckland Council
  • Sara Hay, CFO, Wellington City Council
  • Stewart Taylor, CFO, ANZ 

Observers

  • Mark Wierzbicki, Director eInvoicing, MBIE
  • Stu Ross, Manager Operations and Promotion, MBIE
  • Breeana Pullin, Data and Research Analyst, MBIE *
  • Linda More, Principal Advisor Marketing & Communications, MBIE *

Meeting minutes

Welcome and introductions

Board minute Action Required
Round table of introductions for substitutes and members attending for the first time. Nil

Administration

Board minute Action Required
The minutes from the previous meeting were agreed to be true and accurate.
The Chair noted that the meeting is being minuted to capture high level actions or decisions. Comments will not be attributed to individuals or organisations. Minutes are being published on einvoicing.govt.nz
The Chair noted that no declarations of interest have been received.
Future meetings were agreed to be proposed on Monday afternoons. The Secretariat confirmed that the next three meetings, through to November, will be scheduled soon.

General

Board minute Action Required
The Chair gave a briefing on the progress of eInvoicing since the last meeting. During the briefing Stewart noted:
  • There are now 22 Access Point Providers.
  • The syndicated (AOG) contract for Government is due to go live imminently.
  • Central Government adoption is to be strongly encouraged through letters from responsible Ministers to Chief Executives.
  • Overall targets have been presented and approved by the Hon Stuart Nash.
  • Certification to best practice for invoice content / data standards, which will enable faster processing of invoices, is progressing. MBIE’s partners have or are implementing the data standards.
  • MBIE’s eInvoicing implementation is almost complete.
The Chair gave a briefing on the progress of eInvoicing since the last meeting, including:
  • 23 service providers are now accredited with a further three in progress.
  • Four Government departments and 1,813 organisations are registered to receive eInvoices.
  • All major software providers are operational with receive capability.
  • Central Government agencies have been tasked with implementing the ability to receive eInvoices by 31 March 2022.
  • eInvoicing targets have been set for Central Government agencies, with the expectation that 90% of invoices received by Central Government will be eInvoices by 1 July 2026.
  • Central Government adoption of eInvoicing is progressing well.
  • An Access Point Provider (Service Provider) panel, under an All of Government Syndicated Contract, is now available to the wider state sector. Six departments have already engaged the panel.
  • The eInvoicing team continues to leverage the Government’s 95%/10 day faster payments initiative to promote the benefits of eInvoicing to Government and business leaders.
  • The eInvoicing Team is assisting MBIE policy with investigating and recommending the best way to achieve faster payment by New Zealand businesses. This includes education, incentives, reporting, and legislation.
MYOB and Xero presented their eInvoicing solutions. They used this opportunity to demonstrate the first ever live eInvoice between the MYOB and Xero platforms.
Mark Wierzbicki, Director eInvoicing, gave a briefing on the eInvoice best practice fields / data standards.
  • There was a brief discussion on the fields.
Mark Wierzbicki, Director eInvoicing, gave a presentation on the change required to implement eInvoicing. He summarised various options and costs to become eInvoicing capable.
  • There was a discussion on the cost to implement eInvoicing and the option for organisations to become an Access Point Provider. It was acknowledged that this is an option for large organisations. However, it was noted that it is not always a beneficial approach as it deviates from most organisations core business.
  • Westpac is now eInvoicing capable and they are looking for organisations to transact with. They noted that the cost to implement was low.
Mark Wierzbicki, Director eInvoicing, presented the eInvoicing Community of Practice terms of reference.
  • No feedback received.o No feedback received.
  • Members were asked to submit nominations for a co-chair and participants directly to the eInvoicing Team.
AP 1.1  Members to submit proposals for a co-chair and participants for the eInvoicing Community of Practice.
Stu Ross, Manager Operations & Promotion, gave an update on the marketing and communications strategy.
The Chair shared the following questions to be discussed with the group at the next meeting on 20 September 2021:
  • How are you progressing with eInvoicing capability and when do you think this will be in place for your organisation?
  • Have you on-boarded any suppliers and received any eInvoices? If so from who and how many?
  • What steps have you taken to adopt faster payment in relation to your invoices? Do they have any statistics that they are willing to share?o Is there anything that MBIE can do to help you with this?

MEETING CLOSED: 3:30pm