Apologies for the lack of recent coverage on eipp/e-invoicing. Thought leadership cannot be provided without undertaking adequate research. Wouldn’t it be great if document/information search time can be reduced. This is one of the reasons why I founded edocr with Rhys, Mike and Chris. So please upload your press releases, white papers, case studies, product information, etc on EIPP/e-invoicing to edocr today.
Let’s have a quick look at what some of the leading e-invoicing/EIPP providers have been up to recently, starting with OB10 and Accountis:
OB10
In April, OB10 reported that their clients have saved 1,123 trees in 2007, 223 trees more than in 2006. e-invoicing is clearly an environmentally friendly technology. OB10 has arrived its green totals by calculating number of sheets of paper saved via e-invoicing, and then using standard industry figures to arrive at a number of trees saved. OB10 also reports that e-invoicing has also saved 93 barrels of oil, 192 MWs of energy, 2,800 pounds of air pollutants and diversion of 156 cubic yards of paper from eventual landfill disposal. Other figures released by OB10 states that 10 percent of the trees cut globally attribute to paper invoices and production of paper invoices takes as much energy consumption as powering 20 million homes. Plus an year’s worth of invoices take up as much landfill space as 10 football fields. Startling! So what are we doing about it?
Carbon footprint is clearly a topic that is on everyone’s mind from corporate to consumer. e-invoicing clearly is a technology that could help reduce corporate carbon footprint. Whilst what OB10 reported should be congratulated, I just wonder whether they considered the followings in their calculations:
- The number of buyers (accounts payable) who still demand a paper invoice in addition to e-invoicing.
- The cost of energy used for operating computer systems both at client ends as well as by OB10 and others.
Whilst you cannot do much about item (2) other than to switch to low energy servers such as those supplied by Sun Microsystems and environmentally friendly data centres, you certainly can control item (1). In this respect, all of us should be playing our part to not print that invoice.
Jamie, I know you did not want to be the first mover with edocr, but please rethink of uploading your press releases, etc, so that I and others can provide additional coverage for your news! In addition, edocr is environmentally friendly, i.e:
- No need to transfer large files and duplicate storage.
- Read as many times as you like without printing.
Accountis
As you know very well, unlike OB10, Accountis is no longer an independent company. Accountis was acquired by FundTech, Inc early this year. 
Ifor Williams, Sales Director at Accountis, has recently published a great article on EIPP titled "Extending Payments to the Full Cycle”, which can be accessed by clicking the thumbnail. It looks at the opportunity e-invoicing holds for banks and how they can take advantage of it. By combining billing services, specifically EIPP, with their existing transaction services, banks can deliver a unique and valuable end-to-end commercial service. The article was originally published on GTNews.
My understanding from Rhys Jones, Founder of Accountis is that Accountis will remain very much its own entity. Being part of FundTech, it allows Accountis to leverage much larger network of organisations and connectivity for rapid growth. However, we are yet to hear publicly about any new major wins. DHL continues to remain their key European client.