Will 2016 Be the Year the Paper Invoice Becomes Unnecessary?

Did you make any New Year’s resolutions this year? No? Then maybe I can make a suggestion: perhaps you should decide to stop receiving paper invoices. 

Why not let 2016 be the year the paper invoice becomes obsolete and unnecessary! I am sure that some of your readers will challenge me by pointing out that not all businesses are able to send electronic invoices. But I would still say that, in fact, almost all companies can, at least if you include invoices generated in PDF format.

At OpusCapita, our customers have for several years now been able to receive PDF invoices as an integral part of our scanning services. As a result, the proportion of PDF invoices is consistently increasing, while the proportion of paper invoices, thankfully, is decreasing year after year.

In fact, almost 25% of all invoices we handle in our global scanning production are received as PDFs, and in Norway, the volume of PDF invoices is almost 50%.

This means that our Norwegian customers have almost twice the proportion of PDF invoices that our Swedish customers have and more than three times more than our Finnish customers.

Outperformed by the Norwegians? Yes, as a Swede it almost feels like I’m watching the latest Tour de Ski, which was dominated by Norway’s Therese Johaug and Martin Johnserud Sundby!

But the race is not over until you have passed the finish line, and a 50 % proportion still means that half of the race remains.

Personally, I believe this change may be one of the easiest improvements you can make within the accounts payable process since both the invoicer and you as the receiver have everything to gain from replacing paper with PDFs. It is quicker, it costs less and it improves quality.

So what do you say? Shall we, together, try to ensure that 2016 is the year we made the paper invoice unnecessary?

Tobias Wikström

PS. Annually, we have tens of thousands of suppliers sending PDF invoices to our scanning production, so there is a good chance that your suppliers, too, will be able to support you.