It is estimated that New Zealand and Australia process around 1.3 billion invoices each year. The New Zealand and Australian Governments are working on a new electronic invoicing (e-Invoicing) standard that will help save businesses time and money. It is forecast that the e-Invoicing initiative could benefit the New Zealand and Australian economies in the excess of $30 billion over the next 10 years.
The e-Invoicing standard contemplates protocols for the direct exchange of invoices between suppliers’ and buyers’ financial systems. Some accounting software firms have e-invoicing already built into their services. However, things can become clunky when invoices need to move across accounting platforms. When introduced, e-Invoicing will remove this barrier, even if the two businesses are using different systems, standards will allow these systems to ‘speak’ to each other, resulting in faster processing and fewer errors.
The New Zealand and Australian governments released a Discussion Paper: ‘Early Thinking: Operational Governance for trans-Tasman e-Invoicing’ in October 2018. The discussion paper is focused on getting feedback on the nature of the entity to be involved in governing the standard (eg a not for profit), rather than on any content around the standard itself.
However, the paper is a useful read to get background on the initiative and the Government’s commitments around a single economic agenda. The Discussion Paper can be read in full here.
If you want any further information on any of these matters please get in touch with your usual Lane Neave contact or a member of Lane Neave’s Corporate team.
Business Law team
If you need any assistance with the sale or purchase of your business, do not hesitate to get in touch with the Business Law team at Lane Neave.
Gerard Dale, Claire Evans, Graeme Crombie, Evelyn Jones, Anna Ryan, Joelle Grace, Peter Orpin, Ellen Sewell, Matt Tolan, Carlo Wan, Kristina Sutherland, Jacob Nutt, Whitney Moore, Alex Stone, Ben Cooper, Lisa Catto
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