I'm looking into the possibility of sending our invoices out in electronic format, rather than paper format. I'd guess it would be in .pdf format so we can keep formatting etc.
Does anyone know if this would be acceptable to HMCE etc or do they require a hard copy invoice.
Is anyone else doing this? If so, I'd appreciate comments / experiences.
Thanks,
Ian
Ian Dooley
Replies (6)
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Document Management
Our company does the same - presumably, you can just save all the invoices and, if required by HMCE/auditors, etc - you just print them out as required.
However, we use a package called DocumentXP which allows you to save the electronic version directly into it & if you need to retrieve it you can enter various search items in & it brings it up on screen.
It's use had been agreed by HMCE and our Auditors love it!
Large Customer
A very very large customer of ours sends out all their Invoices across europe using pdfs and have no problems whatsoever.(apart from one German customer who insisted for quite some time on a paper backup through the post-but seemed quite happy if they could not trace an Invoice having a copy sent as a PDF)
This is integrated into Encore or you can use fineprint pdf for free
The basda ebis schema works on xml documents being forwarded as emails and works well if you have a regular trading relationship with another company and can match up customer-supplier and stock codes. We have had instances with this however with email firewall software kicking back the emails as virus suspect.
HMCE would appear only to be concerned if the format you use to send can be altered as in a non protected word document.
PDF format
You should confirm with HMCE that whatever you decide to do, its in an acceptable format.
With PDFs, you can lock the document in such a way as to not allow the person to change it in any manner but they can still print/save it.
You will need to buy a Adobe PDF writer software for this.
The alternative is to use the existing accounting software you have installed.
For instance Sage Line 50 has the email option which allows you to receive and send invoices/orders by email. The module is £99 per year I believe.
Any more queries please email.
dbmail - another option
There's a product called dbmail from www.versionone.co.uk which lets you email invoices, purchase orders, remittance advices, etc from more or less any accounting system. It supports XML (eBIZ, etc), PDF and various other formats. According to the VAT Guide, it's all OK with HMCE.
David
eConnect
HMCE did have an issue until recently, but due to the eGovernment concept where all agencies have to trade electronically where possible it kind of meant HMCE could not really uphold the hard copy rule any longer.
As long as you use a PDF,TIF,GIF,HTML format document you will be ok. If someone is really hell bent on changing a document these days they will, but hey, what's to stop them scanning and editing a hard copy?
eConnect from Albany will do this at just a bit less than Version One's offering (at least that was the case about 1 year ago). However, check the version release if you go down this route. Version 4.5 was due about 3 years ago and will be the better option, if it ever appears.
Save paper and send it electronically
I am sure PDF is fine.
With the internet based Accounts Anywhere (www.accountsanywhere.co.uk) system you can just send a customer an email containing a URL to their invoice. When the customer clicks on the URL his invoice pops up on his screen, he can then decide whether to print his invoice or create a PDF from it - much simpler than sending printed invoices.
From the business point of view, it saves printing and postage, since the invoices are always retrievable and the format is preserved.
Let's save some trees and money.