Ensuring eSignature Legality for Business Transaction Management in European Union

How to eSign a document: eSignature legality for Business Transaction Management in European Union

[Music] hi everyone and welcome to this webinar which is titled Ian voicing the benefits of partnering with avalara we'll be with you for about 45 minutes today and really looking forward to sharing some information on this very very exciting subject so who's actually joining you today well firstly you're joined by myself my name is Ruby Buckland and I am a senior director leading our emea partner Business Development practice for Europe and also I'm joined today by Alex balf my colleague who is our leader for Global indirect tax um Alex would you like to introduce yourself thanks Ruby and hello everyone um yeah Alex bullf I'm a senior director for Global indirect taxney invoicing I'm also our product leader for our e-invoicing and live reporting solution great to be here with you today thanks Alex so what are we actually covering today well for the next 45 minutes we're going to be taking a walk uh down um the Ian voicing subject and we're going to start by doing an introduction to invoicing followed by a breakdown of existing and upcoming mandates we'll then look at what the business impact is of these changes for end users and partners and also then have an overview of the avalara e-invoicing and live reporting solution lastly we'll be talking about some of the ways that we partner with businesses and how we can help you in serving your customers so before we go into the subject matter of today let's just talk about who avalara is for those of you that don't know so avalara was established in 2004 and we specialize in transactional taxes providing fast easy and accurate ways to ensure that you remain compliant on top of all of your requirements in these areas as well as of course reducing risk and streamlining all of your businesses a little bit more about the business we currently cover 193 countries across all of our different products we have 30 000 customers globally we have 1200 pre-built Integrations and these are growing daily and last but not least we have 22 officers across four continents and in terms of what avalara actually does um on the screen in front of you right now you can see all the different products that we currently have in the market and this also is growing um all the time too but at the moment what you'll be able to see here is that we have an enter in end Suite of compliance for indirect tags and that goes all the way from registration for indirect tax requirements such as vat GST sales and use tax through to product classification and then the very important calculation and more and why that's going to be more important as we move forward um in the world of indirect taxes and we'll be talking about that more a little bit today so within Avatar Global Tax engine we cover sales and use tax vat GST Customs UT as well um and then Ian voicing which is obviously the focus of today's session going into a lot of detail on this um shortly and last but not least returns and Reporting so um arguably you know uh the thing that really most businesses are aspiring to what they're actually submitting to the authorities along with the invoicing which is going to move that to more real time um and just in terms of a few stats on on some of these products and I'll just pick a couple for calculation um in 2022 avalora actually did 39.6 billion avatax API calls um and those those were made by our customers and also another stat that I'll just bring out is that in 2022 Avalar processed and filed more than 5.2 million returns so indirect tax really is our business and we're seeking to manage that whole end-to-end journey within our own um within avalora so this these are all products that we own and we don't rely on any third parties for these so moving through to um subject one for today introduction to e-invoicing so we'll probably just start at the basics here to ensure that everybody's starting on the same place on the subject of e-invoicing so this is a word that has been thrown around a lot at the moment you know what exactly is e-invoicing well let's start with an with an invoice you know everybody really knows what an invoice is right it is a document um that we all know typically lists goods or services are provided and lists the required payment and typically how you would pay that payment and by what date you need to pay it um so today for invoices these are typically very unstructured and what we mean by that is that it's using you know free Word Excel or just saving and printing as a simple PDF but what we're starting to see is a real move away from this and the move away is uh very clearly from paper to digital and that is where we switch to an e-invoice and to be an invoice e-invoice you actually need to be a digital document and that needs to be structured and machine readable now typically this is in two forms um it's either hybrid or structured now a pure structured document is typically in an XML format and a couple of examples you may serve this is a CII or a ubl um we also get hybrid documents now these are really interesting because they can be read by machines and also people so an example of this would be a PDF a PDF A3 and that differs from a normal PDF because it's actually embedded with XML um so it can be read and it's also visible um to a computer too so visible to the human eye and also a computer um so Alex are there any other examples that you could give please that we're seeing um today in terms of hybrid for you know more specific mandates yeah absolutely Ruby so you know as you said XML in its purest form is to be read by a machine and not not all of us can read XML um you know you almost need a degree in computer science to really understand you know who's issued the invoice what was it for what's the tax amount um and and that's where this hybrid document comes in really really handy because it's as close to business as usual as you can get because to the human eye it's a PDF it's it's something that is Visual and what people are used to but it has embedded XML in there so it can still be um received interpreted processed by a system and we're starting to see this be deployed by tax authorities in France they have the factor x invoice that is a hybrid PDF a PDF A3 um that's going to be one of the acceptable invoice formats for the French mandate next year we're going to talk about that in a a bit more detail a bit later today um that invoice is actually also being used in Germany uh the zugford um so it's actually been developed by both the French and German authorities um and a great example of that PDF A3 in action and you know moving towards the Middle East um the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia who um is rolling out phase service for Torah invoicing mandates um you know while you know the main invoice format is XML you know where a customer requests a human readable version that must be um the hybrid PDF A3 document so we're already seeing this document in use um we're seeing it as a very common requested format um you know across those countries and I think I think that will continue to grow thanks Alex and we'll be digging a bit more into some of those countries specifically France later on in this webinar today and you know one thing it's worth pointing out and that's a green arrow at the bottom here is that this is all a shift away from manual processes to fully automated invoice processing which can be difficult to put in place you know let's be honest about that but the benefits that come with that are are quite far-reaching both from an economical perspective environmental perspective and also of course being compliant so let's actually just take a moment to to talk about what is invoicing and what is live reporting these are two terms that are being thrown around at the moment are quite a lot um so firstly starting with the invoicing we've already started to talk a little bit about that you know what is the invoicing well sounds simple but it's the exchange of the invoices between different types of parties within a transaction so typically between suppliers and their customers they then seem to they will then follow a very consistent structure and that will be in the form of what the format of the document is and what the content is and the way that the data is also formatted and this typically will align with country requirements too so it can vary and will vary country by country these are then sent and Via a platform and this will be an open network like purple and we'll touch on that more later and Via a government portal where it's mandated or lastly for a private EDI connection or email and this is an example of a PDF A3 that we've touched upon a moment ago then we've got live reporting and this is the provision of tax and transactional data to the tax Authority so it's it's mandated that tax authorities need this information now this can be part of the e-invoice issue where when any invoice is issued there'll be information that's stripped out and collected by the tax authorities at a granular level and then used as part of live reporting or it can also be a parallel process where invoices are sent um e-invoices or invoices depending on whether there's a mandate for invoicing in that country but in parallel you also need to send very granular information to a tax Authority so Spanish SII is a very good example of this where you need to submit um information on a periodic basis to the tax authorities that information is then reconciled to about returns to ensure that they match um now this is very granular transactional level data and what it actually gives the authorities the ability to do is review approve and validate information so where it's part of a mandated invoice they're actually putting themselves in the middle of the transaction so they're seeing that invoice before the final customer what it does and actually approving the sending of it to the final customer so they're the main differences between um ear voicing and live reporting so I'm going to hand over to Alex now who's going to talk a little bit about global digitalization Trends in tax reporting Alex over to you thanks Ruby so yeah no that was a really good overview about what is an invoice um what is he invoicing you know what is live reporting e-reporting different variations um on the same theme um and the this is such a key Trend you know it's the clear direction of travel for tax authorities and governments globally and on the screen now you know there's a really good diagram um designed by PWC um this shows the rise of the invoicing and e-reporting across the globe so countries like Brazil a lot of South American Latin American countries implemented the invoicing over the last decade every year we've just seen this clear trajectory more and more governments more and more tax authorities start to introduce the invoicing and then mandate us and you know if you look at this this graph this charts what we will see in the next few years is this won't fits on one page because the number of of countries doing this it's it's almost every month every month there's a new consultation there's new draft legislation um this is going to continue to accelerate and why are governments doing this well it's to reduce the vat Gap it's to collect vat that's not currently being collected due to fraud you know the kind of worst level um but also due to two errors due to transposition areas um due to failures to correct charge to correctly charge tax at the right time and they're using invoicing to do this sharing granular transactional information with the tax authorities moving away from a summary level of reporting through the traditional vat return and providing tax authorities the ability to carry out checks and analytics on that invoice data so sometimes that will be in real time and we're going to look at some of the the common models in a minute um but also it's after the facts you know once they have all the details from every single invoice every single transaction that provides the tax authorities with Rich granular data to carry out orders to carry out analytics exception reports and and we're even seeing this in in Latin America the use of AI machine learning and Artificial Intelligence being deployed on this huge data Lake that that's being obtained by the tax authorities so I just this will just continue um to grow um you know something that was very much a local issue over the last decade the decade ahead it really is a global issue and one of the reasons this is going to continue to grow is it's backed from the very top I've got a quote here from the oecd um and I think this quote really sums up why tax authorities want to deploy Ian voicing and live reporting it's a win-win better detection of crime higher revenue recovery and synergies that can make tax compliance easier for both businesses and tax Administrations when I when I talk about this quote at conferences I often do get a kind of rice smile from the audience maybe a few Chuckles because is it really making it easier for businesses you know there's obviously a recognition that there's a lot of transformation change in management that needs to occur e-invoicing really does change existing business processes is a big change to most business tax Finance functions within a company however once the invoicing is deployed the date is correct the date is more granular that actually does provide benefits it does automate a lot of key tax and AP and AR processors and ultimately a lot of tax authorities want to move to a position where they will start pre-completing pre-populating bat and GST returns based on the data they receive so moving away from this parallel process where you have invoicing for commercial and financial reasons and then you have a periodic end of period vat return process vat compliance this aligns as one and that alignment does bring synergies and business benefits so why are governments introducing this I've already touched upon this the vat Gap in the EU alone this was estimated at the last count of the over 93 billion euros globally if you extrapolate that you know maybe looking at around 400 billion dollars globally so a big issue and particularly in a post-pandemic environment Tash is key you know governments want to maximize tax revenue they need this to help rebuild the economy and the more governments and tax authorities that implement this the more other governments are taking a look and saying I want I want that too I want to take a greater percentage of that tax take I want to reduce fraud um I want to maximize the tax take but it's also about efficiency too and tax authorities are on their own digital and finance transformation Journeys the way they order is changing the way they hire is changing they're starting to hire data scientists people who are more tech savvy through investing in servers the infrastructure they're using the cloud they are preparing to receive data in a structured format and data at scale you know moving away from that summary vat return which put simply is too little too late it doesn't provide the level of insights that tax authorities really need and again I mentioned this before the future is Real Time approval of em voices and it's the deployment of analytics Ai and data analytics on that rich invoice data so Alex kind of a thought on this if that's okay we we do believe and understand that that Gap is a driver for the rising Mondays that we're seeing do you feel that it's been proven that where countries have introduced you're voicing mandates there has been a reduction in in the back Gap uh yeah absolutely um you know so if you look to countries like Italy so Italy was the first country within the European Union to mandate business to business e-invoicing if you if you look at the stats and you know the first couple of years um not only does the tax take increase but you actually see increases in in national GDP because suddenly parts of the economy that maybe the tax Authority governments didn't have visibility on um you know maybe the kind of rare sides of the economy um they're suddenly bought into the tax net they're bought into the visibility of of tax reporting through these mandates um so you can you can definitely see the improvements you can see the results and you know from a you know from a personal view you know I've been a an advisor to businesses before I spent 18 years um you know as a consultant uh a lot of these projects a lot of these mandates really Drive process data and system improvements so it's the opportunity for businesses um to prepare reinvoicing but also uh to improve the quality of their data and and that's going to lead to more accurate tax calculation decisions and more accurate tax reporting so you know reducing errors um reducing the need to make voluntary disclosures getting it right first time and I think everything that he invoices is trying to achieve leads to this it's the idea that all the data that's submitted it's structured isn't a common format it's a common standard it can be audited automatically and indeed service providers like avalara play a key role in that too because you know the way we ingest that data is an instruction format we can carry out validations and checks um so you know there is a line of defense before that invoices is even issued before it's received by a tax Authority thanks Alex very interesting and obviously we've talked a little bit about some mandates in the market so let's let's dig a bit deeper into that so let's have a look at some of the existing and updating um upcoming mandates that we have in the market thanks for being here so I mentioned Brazil before Brazil was the Trailblazer book free invoicing and yeah latam has really been the first region to really deploy Ian voice and live reporting at scale um you know Brazil it's past and parcel of life every invoice that's issued received is reported to the tax Authority there's so much visibility even when Goods move from one state to another there is reporting this has been deployed as well in virtually every single Latin American country Argentina Colombia Mexico the requirements do differ a different formats different standards different requirements around the software you have to use whether you need to be an accredited provider um some countries are starting to deploy QR codes for example um but but really in that last decade it's really only just been Latin America that's mandated Ian voicing at scale the business to business transactions and where we've seen the invoicing within Europe is tended to be more focused on public procurement so business to government businesses that have contracts with government departments um so you know over the last um three years the European Union has mandated government departments in every single EU member state to be in a position to receive em voices that meet the European em voicing standard there is a directive on that um but then we've seen a handful of member states start mandating um b2g Ian voicing but apart from Italy in 2019 really the only other Ian voicing apart from Peter G has been in the form of live reporting or e-reporting and we've seen a kind of myriad of of different compliance requirements so the Spanish Sai reporting invoice level data every four days in Hungary real-time reporting so there's no requirement in Hungary to issue any invoice it could still be paper it can still be an unstructured PDF but every time that invoice is generated the invoice data needs to be submitted to the Hungarian tax Authority and it's really just in the last 12 months that we've seen this Ian voice and explosion we've seen um across EU member states more and more mandates for business to governments um say for example Belgium and Luxembourg but we've also seen more European countries mandate Ian voicing so Serbia um from from January uh this year we've started to see pilot programs new platforms being developed by ee member states and next year is The Big Year the big Catalyst year the game changer next year we have France Poland Spain possibly Belgium all mandating e-invoicing between businesses that is going to impact roughly 10 million businesses in Europe it's a huge huge deal it's a big transformation moment and other countries will follow too a draft directive Vida vast in the digital age um this is removing what aims to remove a lot of the obstacles the barriers that prevent businesses from adopting e-invoicing on a voluntary basis um but it's also to make it easier AE member states to mandate Ian voicing the crescendo the I suppose the Finishing Line um is 2028 um where there's a proposal that all cross-border Ian voicing so intra-community sales and purchases will all be subject to real-time reporting live reporting of that transactional data to tax authorities and have revamped um fires system and that will be underpinned by mandatory Ian voicing um but as I said that's really the Finishing Line it's not the starting gun the starting gun is now and you know it's our view that between now and 2028 virtually every single EU members table Implement e-invoicing um and there's there is a dozen other member states there are different phases of that implementation including Germany who have submitted a request to the European Union for a derogation a mission to mandate b2be invoicing and that's likely to be as early as January 2025 so you know suddenly over half of European GDP will be covered by any invoicing mandate in the next 18 months to Alex you know this is fascinating I love this slide and actually whenever we show it everybody gets their cameras out and takes a photo so I always like to caveat this slide and say this is always changing actually staying on top of this is is a full-time job for many people at avalora so you know so much information this slide and I think it's just worth taking a moment on two regions that we've not really touched on yet which is Asia pack right so for aspect we've seen quite a few countries um introduce mandates in 2023 um and um so we're seeing a rise in that region which I think is worth noting on this call but also uh the US right that they they're currently in in a pilot period aren't they with um the option to do invoicing voluntary in on a voluntary basis yeah absolutely so this really isn't just a latam and European issue we're seeing the spread to every corner of the globe so um your first question about APAC absolutely we're seeing a number of of countries in the region um either mandate e-invoicing or seriously promotes its use so you mentioned the purple Network um that was originally set up as a European initiative to support public procurement business to government transactions there's about 750 000 businesses and government departments on that Network today that will probably grow to closer to a million later this year but a lot of Apec countries like Australia New Zealand Singapore Japan they've jumped on the purple train um and they've you know provided a a national local standard um to be used on that Network I'm promoting its use so in Australia you know this isn't tax driven but it's still being encouraged by the ATO the Australian tax office and to incentivize businesses um in Australia if if you have a contract with the government department and you issue the invoice electronically via people there is a commitment to pay that invoice within five days um and interest will be paid if it's not made in that period in Singapore we're actually seeing government grants um you know actual dollars being paid to adopt the invoicing again not tax driven but just a recognition that it aids with digitalization of the economy and the real business benefits um we're also seeing you know more mandates um you know across APAC um you know in China there's been a number of different Pilots at a regional level as they've rolled out the E Fabio um we are seeing um new mandates in the Philippines Malaysia intends to introduce the invoicing I'm starting later this year and then you mentioned the US and that's really really interesting because the US is a bit different from a from a indirect tax perspective because there isn't a single federal vat we have um tax at a state and local level there are over 10 000 different tax and jurisdictions in the US so that makes it very difficult for tax to be The Driver there isn't one um kind of injury attacks Authority that can really take the lead um so instead we've seen the emergence of a national invoicing standard and a national digital highway so originally this was a pilot um run in conjunction with the the Federal Reserve Banks and the bpc the business payments Coalition um this has now moved from a pilot stage to a go live Network so we've seen the establishment of something called the digital business networks Alliance um avalora um is is going to be a founding member um of this body um I've actually just joined the interim board of directors um and it's very exciting because the US has always had Ian voicing but a a very um but Divergent level there's been so many different private networks procurement networks it's been almost the power of multinationals saying send me this format join this procurement Network what we're seeing with this dbna digital highway is a common standard a common standard that can be implemented by Erp systems service providers businesses and and it will be a four corner model very much like Pebble it will be built on XML standards using ubl Universal Business language and is there to increase efficiency move away from paper move away from standard PDFs um hopefully accelerate payment times particularly for small and medium-sized businesses so again you know this is happening everywhere sometimes it's mandated sometimes it's voluntary and sometimes it's incentivized but you know it really is a global issue now that businesses really need Stakes seriously um erps business platforms payment service providers it's something that you can't ignore thanks Alex interesting and a lot to watch is space on I guess I'm mindful of time to make sure that we get we stick to the 45 minutes that we we've promised this webinar so let's now spend a few minutes on the models um now the next slide here shows um some of the models you talked about the four corner model um there's some more models and you know that's what does keep this quite complicated because different countries are choosing different models for their mandates um so let's take a few minutes to look at this and then perhaps we can then move into some examples of some of the the big countries coming through in 2024. absolutely so completely that there is no single model around the globe um there are different workflows there are different orders of of the the invoicing process and the data submission so people is underpinned um by a four corner model it's based on interoperability the idea that having a common network with a common standard there's no single government platform to connect to you connect to a service provider who is certified that service provider ensures the data the invoice they receive meets the local requirements so can convert it to the relevant standard that service provider in effect has a key to the network and will share that invoice to your Trading Post partner to your counterparty via their service provider and then that service provider will receive the invoice and pass it back um so no roaming fees it doesn't matter if your customer or your vendor your supplier uses a different accredited service provider you know you're not forced to join a procurement Network one of the Legacy AP networks this is open it's an open network um you're free to choose and change your provider and it doesn't have to be the same provider as your trading partner um so it really is an open network it's built on this concept of four corners and it will continue to spread I've already you know mentioned this is being used across the EU for public procurement Australia New Zealand Singapore Japan is actually using um people as a way of compliantly meeting the new tax qualified invoice requirements that kick in from October this year um so certainly something to look for um and you know as more and more businesses grow you'll see this network effect I said 750 today that will move to closer to a million by the end of this year and that will continue to grow we then have um models like Hungary which I've already mentioned real-time reporting there isn't actually always any invoice um but if we're seeing the reporting of a subset of that invoice data to the tax Authority so been hungry that's in real time um in some other countries it's more periodic here reporting and then we have live vat reporting clearance models where before that invoice is actually issued to the customer pure counterparty it needs to be shared with the tax Authority and they review it they approve it in some countries they're digitally signing us um they may be adding a QR code they may be adding a unique identification number in effect making that invoice legal giving you the green light to send it on and some tax authorities then go a step further in a more centralized model the tax Authority is sitting in the middle between the supplier and the customer and the way the customer the business retrieves that invoice is via that government platform so that's how it works in in Italy um you know via the SOA platform it's how this will work in Poland next year under the new case f e invoicing mandates um that's quite interesting because the standard there is XML so every business is required to generate a compliance polish XML invoice and that's then sent to the government platform the KSF platform and the platform itself takes that XML converts it into a human readable PDF and that PDF is in Polish um and suddenly in Poland next year every single invoice looks the same and the way the the customer obtains that invoice is through the portal either manually logging in viewing the invoice list downloading them in the format you want or through a service provider who will be able to automate reaching out retrieving those invoices and bringing them back into your system and then finally a kind of future State model um this is often seen as a kind of CTC uh five or six Corner model it's looking at leveraging four corner models like pebble putting the tax Authority in the middle this is what Belgium's proposed mandate may look like um it's actually what France's mandate next year may end up like um because there's currently a pebble proof of concept at the moment trying to get the candidate pdps the certified e-invoicing providers to link together using the people Network and using a special Pebble directory um so you know very much future looking um but this model could play a very key part um under under Veda that in the digital age so I mentioned 2024 being The Big transformational Year um the game changer for reinvoicing in the EU um so at the moment July is the big year is the big month in 2024 we're seeing new mandates in France Spain and Poland this affects businesses business to business transactions um in France you know the headline is the the sending of the invoices is limited to the largest businesses for the Enterprise level companies but in reality um every business needs to be in a position to receive an electronic invoice from the first of July because every business will have large suppliers um you know different vendors within its ecosystem um there's also new requirements on the e-reporting of certain data around business to Consumer sales but also cross-border and payment data um so a big big impact there that's going to impact over four million businesses in France um very similar in Spain we have less detail um you know the the legislation isn't as final as France we're still waiting the full technical details there's been a public consultation so this could slowly be delayed or or what the model looks like could change um certainly something to still prepare for and then Poland as I mentioned um the KSF platform can actually be used today voluntarily you can already test against it um but this again is a big change um and all invoices will need to meet this new local polish XML standard and all invoices will need to go to be retrieved from the case f platform so what does this mean to businesses it's really a big change to how they do business how they interact with trading partners how they not only issue invoices to their customers but how they receive invoices from their suppliers from their vendors um and what this looks like is emerging the business processes and tax compliance they're no longer two distinct processes so I'd like to think this is a continuous compliance cycle something that's happening almost every second of the day every day of the year um so you know businesses need to be prepared for submitting compliant e-invoices meeting local standards being able to send them to the relevant portal the relevant platform relevant Network being able to physically sign add a QR code meeting very local requirements but also being in the position to receive those very same compliant invoices from from vendors this has an impact on procurement processes individual arrangements with suppliers you know maybe use a procurement Network today maybe you have certain portals you use with certain customers or certain suppliers under e-invoicing mandates that may need to change is really a big impact to traditional financial and procurement processes but then a big impact in relation to how v80 GST returns are prepared so suddenly we're moving to this granular level of data of data of detail in a return that invoice data becomes a single source of truth it's already being shared with a tax Authority so we're going to suddenly see more focus on reconciliation from em voice data to the data in a return but it's the full life cycle that needs to be thought of and this is continuous every day because under reinvoicing there is greater focus on archive and being able to demonstrate the authenticity of the sender and the Integrity of that invoice data that needs to be stored typically for an entire decade so a big big change um and the change that's really underpinned by the quality and granularity of that data that you store in your business systems I think Alex you know there's some real opportunities here for the tax function and finance functions because it's helping to get Tax and Finance more especially tax right to the top of the boardroom agenda so for those businesses that have been struggling to get budget to automate or look at their tax calc strategy um tax population that is sorry determination this allows them really to have a hook to hang that on and I've met with many businesses that really are taking the ball by the horns here are trying to automate as much as they can in Readiness for this continuous compliance cycle so I think it looks a little bit scary on the face of it my goodness you know you've got to get it right first time but there's also opportunities there and I think um certainly individuals that I've talked to in the tax function are really beginning to think like this and actually how do they become a stakeholders the business and how do they actually work with the c-suite to to actually bring home the relevance of this and how perhaps processes will need to change absolutely you know and it goes back to that idea of win-win you know once this is embedded once it becomes a standard business process you have the data you're meeting these requirements there'll be natural synergies and benefits for the business for the finance function the procurement function for the tax function um you know yeah there's a lot of change here there's a lot of things to track um it can seem quite scary but that's why businesses need to partner they need to partner with their erps um e-commerce epos Partners but then those businesses need to partner with a trusted invoice provider too thanks Alex I think that neatly goes to our next section which is avalara invoicing live reporting you know what do we do in this area and I know that you've recently taken over this product Alex I think it'd be really good to get um you know your input on that thanks Phoebe yeah so we're really excited um about our involvement with any invoicing um two years ago avalara inquired imposia um in Germany um leading e-invoicing an edui company um what we've been doing is is taken that expertise experience um the core product functionality but building um that product into the avalara uh compliance Cloud so something that is global um seamless in terms of integration a single solution a single integration a single API and something that will scale uh you know as more and more countries across the globe implement e-invoicing historically business businesses Erp providers they've often gone um for local Solutions and that's because historically it was a local issue it was an individual country compliance requirement someone had to meet was often delegated down to a local country manager um you know at a subsidiary level but with the pace and scale of the invoicing today that approach is no longer sustainable businesses business platforms they need a single Global solution they need to look at this strategically so you know we have designed a solution that is not only single and Global but it has a global API so regardless of the country mandate there is one way to connect and we've built that Global API on a universal standard Universal Business language so there is already a common global data dictionary for businesses to know and understand and build to um you know gone are the days of saying you know this is a template these are the fields we use this is now being built on a global standard something in this Global something that's scalable so avalara Ian voicing live reporting and connect to any billing platform Erp through an API the system agnostic with country agnostic because the data that comes in is then mapped to our own instruct format we convert that data to meet the relevant requirements based on the country mandate so relevant format is it a PDF A3 is it an XML is it a local variation is it ubl is it CII doesn't need to be digitally signed what are the standards that need to be met what's the structure do we need a QR code where do we send that invoice do we send it to a networked we send it to the government is that pre or post issuing the invoice we have pre-built country mandate workflows to meet all of those diverse requirements so all the business or the platform needs to worry about ascending the right data at the right time and then our solution takes care of the rest as well as sending the invoice to the tax Authority we also receive it we bring back invoices on the receipt side from a network from a government platform and pass that back again through a single API to the business to the system so really this interacts as part of business as usual you know it's it's behind the scenes to provide a way to have compliance the invoicing we also have a monitoring system so businesses can view the status of invoices issued and received were there any errors being able to identify the the actual error message being able to view the invoices that have been issued and received as well as viewing those in the different formats that are available and that you know may include a human readable version too we also have dashboards to show analytics um you know showing an overview and a whole holistic view of invoicing and that can be split by company by country um so can easily be deployed in a center of excellence a shared service center um you know all be used by a Global Tax function thanks Alex so a lot of information there um so as I try to kind of summarize this and get us to the end of this webinar what I will say is this is webinar one of a series so I know we've gone we've covered a lot of subjects that may be new but we will be getting more granular on some of those areas so please do look out for the other parts of this series that will follow but as we reach the end um and as I start to cover how we can partner together and what avalara's approaches on is on this I just want to summarize some of the key things that we've heard today so what I'm going to start with is you know why is it important to act now well as you've hopefully seen through our very quick tour of what's happened in the past and what's forthcoming mandatory invoicing is very much expected to spread to more countries it's scheduled two there's more mandates coming and honestly we think it will soon be looking at who isn't introducing invoicing rather than actually tracking the ones that are so um it's growing and that's a fact 2024 is a big year and avalora very much is getting ready for that as as well as a lot of our customers and partners and then the main other bullet to think about is you know mandatory invoicing really is going to make um paper and PDF invoices uh invoices sorry non-compliant so what we're going to end up with is um the fact that you could effectively not be able to conduct business in a given country if you're not compliant and aligning with e-invoicing um and there'll be other operational obstacles as well um so it could stop business for you in a country where you're currently operating or looking to move into and last but not least we're seeing these um be launched thick and fast so they can occur at any time typically you do have noticed so I don't want to be scared remembering here but effectively we have some some short turnarounds or information related to a mandate change a little bit last minute with schemas being changed for instance um I think it's um Poland is always on already on iteration two of their schema which is coming out in 2024 that's likely to change again before then and as a result businesses are expected to be ready their platforms and financial systems are expected to be ready and software providers via erps uh billing platforms marketplaces customers will be expecting them to also be ready to support them in their business activities so they're uninterrupted so it's just thinking about those all those elements and why it's important to act now um another key start I'm not sure if Alex has already mentioned it but in 2024 we do expect 45 of GDP in Europe to actually be covered by an invoicing mandate so that's that's looking all the information we've got available and just using what coverage we think that will be so it's a very very high number just thinking about some of the complexity again summarizing what we've actually heard you know providers of Finance and Accounting platforms and erps need to actually make sure that they're able to support their their customers and their and their you know future proof for that businesses want to continue trading ensure continuity and they're complying for tax and accounting and consulting firms let's touch on that for a moment they're going to be expected to do vendor selection help businesses actually with Readiness of data um with implementation and testing so there's a part to play you know in a number of areas for this for e-advoicing and someone to think about is you know avalor can obviously help with one waiting to comply but think about some of the complexities that are shown on the right hand side you know performance a different country standards and schemas the apis and endpoints that the countries require vary as well as many other things like do they need a digital signature do they need a QR code um do you need to address directories some of these are some of the things that we're having to look at country by country so very very complicated so to think of a vendor or a partner that can help you achieve that so it's effectively well there's a new mandate coming let's switch that on let's switch that on for our end customers that's really what you should be hoping to achieve so just to finish off our session today how can avalora partner with you so there are different ways that we we partner today in the market with our different buckets of Partners so be your technology partner an accounting or consultant or a system integrator so firstly you can refer avalora Solutions typically where that happens we will give you a commission for referring customers to us so that we can actually provide our end solutions to meet their requirements and their needs um no certification would be required for you as a partner on this you could just enter a program into a program with us where you refer your customers to us where they need our Solutions and we give you Commission in return um option two is actually implementing our Solutions so you could actually get certified through the programs that we have or not just the invoicing but a range of product all our products to actually become a certified implementer so that where you spot a need for your end customer client you're actually able to come in and certify yourself and then Implement e-voicing for example for your end users number three this is becoming quite popular embedding and bundling our Solutions into your own environment so that you're actually able to offer a bundled price to the end user and there's obviously a build needed on your side to be able to do this but this is an area that is proven quite popular for Ian voicing and one that we're able to explore with you and last but not least has actually developed certifications for your own platform so that you're able to send data to our Global API so that we can just feed that into the invoicing mandates as required certification would also be required for this we'd work with you and to assist you so we've got a partner launch team that can assist you through that build um and we've also got a sales team that could then help you to actually receive a revenue share of any referrals that you said to us for your Edge users that actually want to use the integration that you've built so four different ways in which we typically partner for e-invoicing and we would be very happy to discuss any of those with you um should anything you've heard today resonate with you and you understand that you've got a need in this area so I know we're running to time here but I wanted to pause to see if there are any questions that we can take based on what we've heard today so just opening up for questions and we'll also have a look at any questions that have come through during the course of the webinar today Ruby I'm just in one question come in um and it's lots of countries mentioned lots of European ones what about the UK is the UK mandating e-invoice Link um I think that's a very good question because the UK really does stand out it's not really you know on that on that timeline that I showed um at the moment there's limited mandates in the UK free invoicing we have um a requirement if you do business with the NHS NHS England for example um there is a requirement to submit um Ian voices um and there's a number of different ways of doing that um we have macintach digital which which isn't really live reporting you know it's just the way the ninebox v80 return is submitted um at the moment the position is there is no clear road map a mandatory invoicing in the UK I think it's something you know the treasury hmrc are probably monitoring um that's in the digital age will at the moment on the face of it impact um some businesses in Northern Ireland so the UK still has to be part of that discussion and it will impact um British businesses but I think even if there isn't an immediate mandate in the UK UK businesses do need to look further afield look at what's happening globally where they do business where they have subsidiaries how are they impacted exactly the same for the US yes there's an opportunity now to join um the digital business Network Alliance uh B2B digital Highway um you know for invoicing between um businesses but also it's looking further afield it's looking at you know where you have operations where you have subsidiaries where you do business how is that going to impact you um you know where where do you need to be compliant thanks everyone for your time today unfortunately you've run out of time for more questions however we will stay on the chat box to answer any that haven't been answered during the course of this webinar um so I guess um what's left for me to do now is to thank Alex for your time thank you so much Alex it's been a pleasure having you join me today thanks Ruby absolutely pleasure to be here and thanks everyone uh for joining us today and just in terms of next steps you'll see that there's been there's some resources that you have access to um you should see that on your screen right now there's some flyers and date sheets that you might find useful you've also got an email if you would like to get in touch with us um based on what you've heard today um so that's shown you on screen right now and last but not least you have got Alex in mind details as well um should you wish to reach out to either of us we have got some more webinars coming in this series so please do keep an eye out for those at Alex and I look forward to seeing you soon thank you very much goodbye [Music] [Applause] thank you