eInvoicing Adoption Leaders Group minutes – 20 September 2021
Minutes from the 4th eInvoicing Adoption Leaders Group (eALG) meeting held on 20 September 2021.
Meeting details
Date
- Monday, 20 September 2021
Time
- Wellington, 2:00pm to 4:00pm
- Melbourne/Brisbane, 12:00pm to 2:00pm
Location
Attendence
Chair
- Stewart McRobie, CFO Finance and Performance, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE)
Group members
- Alistair Smith, CFO (NZ), IAG Insurance – Attended last hour only
- Caroline Rawlinson, CFO, MYOB
- Craig Hudson, MD, New Zealand & Pacific Islands, Xero
- Emma Dobson, Independent
- Jeff Martin, Chief Technology Officer, B2BE
- John Eastman, New Zealand MD, Oracle
- John Healy, CFO, ACC
- John Mazenier, New Zealand Country Manager, Technology One
- Kris Gerken, Head of Finance, Placemakers / Fletcher Building
- Marc Rivers, CFO, Fonterra
- Nathan Marsh, CFO, Foodstuffs
- Neil Padley, Head of Finance Shared Services – Corporate, Woolworths NZ (Countdown)
- 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
- Nick Quin, Director, Public Sector, SAP
- Quintin Pretorius, Senior Manager, Operations Enablement, Westpac
- Richard Marshall, Manager Financial Accounting and Transactional Services, WCC
Secretariat
- Andrew Cooke, eInvoicing Product Manager, MBIE
Apologies / Not in attendance
- Ian Hankins, CFO, Westpac
- John Bishop, Treasurer and Manager, CCO Governance & External Partnerships, Auckland Council
- Nick Edmond, Head of Sourcing, ANZ
- Peter Gudsell, CFO, Auckland Council
- Phil Cameron, MD, SAP New Zealand, SAP
- Sara Hay, CFO, Wellington City Council
- Stewart Taylor, CFO, ANZ
Observers
- Mark Wierzbicki, General Manager eInvoicing
- Perry Liolios, Lead Advisor eInvoicing Adoption
- Stu Ross, Manager Operations and Promotion
- Breeana Pullin, Research and Data Analyst
- Lisa Ringleff, Senior Relationship Manager eInvoicing
Meeting minutes
Welcome and introductions
| Board minute |
Action required |
| Round table of introductions for substitutes and members attending for the first time. |
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Administration
| Board minute |
Action required |
| The minutes from the previous meeting were agreed to be true and accurate. The Chair reviewed each action and marked them as complete. |
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| 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. |
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| The Chair noted that no declarations of interest have been received. |
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General
| Board minute |
Action required |
The Chair gave an update on the progress of eInvoicing since the last meeting, including:
- Government enablement is progressing in the wake of the target letters being sent to all Central Government agencies. Most agencies have confirmed their plans to implement eInvoicing.
- Four Central agencies are already enabled to receive Peppol invoices. MBIE is providing these agencies with assistance for their approach to suppliers.
- A mass communication to over 5,000 Government suppliers is scheduled soon. It will inform them of the government targets and encourage them to adopt eInvoicing.
- A methodology to identify senders from Xero and MYOB has been established and successfully piloted with some organisations. This is published on the eInvoicing website as part of our supplier communication toolkit to assist early adopters to on board small businesses.
- eInvoicing webinars have resumed after a pause due to COVID-19. The upcoming series of webinars are featuring the four Access Point Providers on the All of Government Open Syndicated Agreement. Then in early October there’s a deep dive into implementing eInvoicing as a receiver of invoices.
- Seven eInvoicing enabled software products are published on the eInvoicing.govt.nz website under our Peppol Ready assessment.
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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.
- Congratulations to Xero, SAP and Technology One for being some of our first Peppol Ready assessed solutions.
- There has been interest in the All of Government Open Syndicated Agreement from a variety of government entities from both central and wider government.
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| MYOB and Xero gave updates on their new eInvoicing registrations. MYOB registrations in New Zealand are low while Xero has close to 3000. Both noted that promotion of eInvoicing will be stepped up once there is more awareness of eInvoicing and there is a further increase in new registrations. |
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| MYOB and Xero both indicated that adoption by large business suppliers will assist in driving SME uptake and usage of eInvoicing. |
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BOC Gas (Australia) and Link4 (Accredited Access Point Provider and eInvoicing Syndicated Contract panel member) gave a presentation on the BOC Gas eInvoicing journey.
Key points included:
- Peppol eInvoicing is seen as another channel, to compliment EDI.
- Peppol eInvoicing is seen as another channel, to compliment EDI.
- Peppol is a one to many solution - get connected once, you’re connected to many as opposed to EDI which is one to one.
- BOC is using Peppol to send invoices to small business in Australia and New Zealando BOC Gas presentation resulted in a number of questions from members. The questions were themed around the nature of the organisations BOC transactions with and their corresponding adoption journeys.
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Various members gave progress updates on their respective organisations eInvoicing journeys.
Key points included:
- Most member organisations have confirmed that eInvoicing is on their work programme.
- Most member organisations have confirmed that eInvoicing is on their work programme.
- eInvoicing implementations are being planned as part of wider ERP upgrade or replacement programmes.
- A common consensus that Peppol eInvoicing will be of benefit to most organisations to speed up transactions and cash-flow.
Key themes provided in the updates included:
- Front end controls are an ongoing issue which eInvoicing will not resolve, e.g. delegation and approval processes.
- People and process change is the hardest part of implementation.
- Relationship with Procure to Pay (P2P) is a significant consideration when implementing eInvoicing.
- eInvoicing will assist with ‘frictionless’ invoice processing.
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| Stu Ross, Manager Operations & Promotion, gave an update on the marketing and communications strategy. |
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The Chair shared the following questions to be discussed with the group at the next meeting on 20 September 2021:
- Most member organisations have confirmed that eInvoicing is on their work programme.
- Most member organisations have confirmed that eInvoicing is on their work programme.
- eInvoicing implementations are being planned as part of wider ERP upgrade or replacement programmes.
- A common consensus that Peppol eInvoicing will be of benefit to most organisations to speed up transactions and cash-flow.
Key themes provided in the updates included:
- Front end controls are an ongoing issue which eInvoicing will not resolve, e.g. delegation and approval processes.
- Front end controls are an ongoing issue which eInvoicing will not resolve, e.g. delegation and approval processes.
- People and process change is the hardest part of implementation.
- Relationship with Procure to Pay (P2P) is a significant consideration when implementing eInvoicing.
- eInvoicing will assist with ‘frictionless’ invoice processing.
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An update was given on progress to establish the eInvoicing Community of practice including:
- An update was given on progress to establish the eInvoicing Community of practice including:
- Organisations who have nominated members.
- Considerations on the approach and scope of meetings to be discussed at the first meeting.
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| The chair gave his closing remarks. He noted that the eInvoicing Community of Practice will be the ‘doing’ arm of this Group and suggested that the Group meet every four months from now on. The Group agreed with this proposal. |
AP 1.1 The Group will meet every three or four months. The November meeting will be pushed back. |
Meeting closed: 3:40pm
