Finance leaders: Say hello to the fragmented and increasingly complex world of electronic invoicing, where if something is amiss, expect a call from regulators.
Experts gave CFO Brew a glimpse into the patchwork landscape of invoicing regulations that, like a tear in space-time between real-world Hawkins, Indiana, and the Upside Down, can spill over to the world of the CFO.
CFOs may be tempted to pass invoicing compliance responsibilities entirely onto another leader, such as the chief procurement officer, without giving the topic much thought if any at all, according to Markus Hornburg, SVP of global compliance at Basware, an e-invoicing software developer.
Yet, countries are creating what Hornburg described as “a CCTV environment for business transactions” where regulators review invoices even before goods trade hands. If an organization’s invoices aren’t up to snuff, “then governments will rip you apart every single time they create an audit,” he told CFO Brew.
There’s also broader trade legislation “relevant across the entire end-to-end audit trail of an invoice” that finance leaders must pay attention to, Hornburg said. One such example is the European Union’s new due diligence law meant to ensure companies’ supply chains don’t violate certain human rights and environmental standards.
“The message that I would send out to CFOs is: Do not look at invoice processing purely from a tactical perspective that someone in your organization is going to handle, because very, very soon, with all these regulations that are being issued by governments around the world, you will be…the one person that they will hold accountable for compliance with all these regulations,” Hornburg said.
By the book. Some governments are conducting “real-time enforcement” of invoices by requiring companies to electronically file them in a standardized format to regulators at the same time as trading partners, according to Christiaan van der Valk, general manager of indirect tax tech and VP of regulatory at tax-compliance software developer Sovos. The data provided through e-invoicing “has sparked a true revolution” for governments, he said, which are using that data for other purposes.
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How exactly are they using this data? Brazil put its invoice data to use in the wake of catastrophic flooding this spring to analyze “precisely how those floodings had impacted all the activity in these areas down to…the smallest villages,” van der Valk said.
Each country has its own particular requirements for e-invoicing, according to the experts. Hornburg said he doubted governments will come together and create uniform standards anytime soon, if at all.
While multinational firms may want to take the easy way out and delegate invoicing compliance to local field offices, that may lead to a monthslong reconciliation when creating year-end financial reports, Hornburg warned, adding this may cause friction with “the CFO’s agenda [of] having clear annual results within a very short period of time.” But, sometimes that message does not get across to finance leaders, he said.
“In all the conversations that I’m involved with at this very moment, I’m struggling to see that the CFOs really accept that challenge,” Hornburg said. “It really seems to be the case that most of the finance organizations are trying to keep that topic away from the CFO because they see it as a tactical problem, whereas it’s really a very strategic problem.”