Paper-free payments: Australia and NZ work on e-invoicing standard

Paper bills are one step closer to being eliminated, with Australia and New Zealand looking at ways to create trans-Tasman standards for electronic invoicing.

The two nations are hoping to save $30 billion over 10 years by driving the adoption of e-invoicing by governments and businesses to achieve more streamlined payments.

Digital invoices have been on the table for several years, with the federal government announcing plans to invest in e-invoicing approaches in the 2016 federal budget.

A framework for Australian e-invoices has been established, moving businesses towards being able to send and receive invoices to each other electronically and directly without both parties needing to have the same accounting software.

A Treasury discussion paper released this week outlines possible structures for Australia and New Zealand to establish a cross-Tasman body to oversee digital invoices across both countries.

The most common ways smaller operators currently send invoices is by paper, email or PDFs.

According to a discussion paper released this week, the Australian Taxation Office is establishing a centralised look-up facility for businesses in Australia and New Zealand so they can find the "digital address" of a supplier and send them an invoice directly. Read more

Emma Koehn - Brisbane Times - 19 Oct 2018