eInvoicing is a government initiative designed to make exchanging invoices and doing business more efficient. eInvoicing involves a direct connection between the accounting software of businesses to restrict human intervention lowering the risk of invoice fraud.  

eInvoicing uses the Peppol network, a secure global public network to send invoices directly from the software of the seller to the software of the buyer via this secure network, ABN to ABN.  

The invoice lands in the draft bills of the buyer’s software for them to check and approve, providing security for both the buyer and the seller. The benefits are:  

• Avoids misdirected or lost emails   
• Reduces the risk of invoice fraud and human error/intervention by using a safer, more secure channel to send and receive invoices  
• Saves time and money by reducing manual data entry  
• Support of small business to become more digitally enabled and improve efficiencies  
• Government agencies are committed to paying eligible eInvoices faster which will assist with cashflow  

You don’t necessarily need to change your platform; software providers have or will make upgrades to allow for this type of invoicing. This is a free feature in Xero Starter, Standard and Premium subscriptions.  

To seek the benefits of eInvoicing both the sender and recipient of an eInvoice need to be registered to do so. For this reason, businesses are being encouraged to not delay registering.  

To read more about this initiative, how to register, how to send an eInvoice and how to find which businesses you are dealing with are also registered head to Xero’s website at https://www.xero.com/au/accounting-software/send-invoices/e-invoicing-software/