Finnish Firm Benefiting From Rising Interest In B2B eInvoicing

Basware Corp., which supplies accounts-payable and eInvoicing software to businesses, recently expanded its relationship with a European brewing company to assist in its North American operations. The Finland-based firm, which also scored recent deals with an Indian IT solutions provider and a UK hospitality company, says eInvoicing can help reduce a business’ costs by up to 80 percent when removing paper from the invoicing process.

Accounts payable and eInvoicing software specialist Basware Corp. says it has expanded its relationship with major brewing company to provide cloud based services powered by its Alusta platform for purchase-to-pay for the firm’s North American operations.

The value of the agreement exceeds 300,000 euros (US$406,310) over three years. The unnamed customer has previously deployed Finland-based Basware’s solutions for accounts payable at its headquarters in Europe, the company said in the agreement announcement.

The agreement includes invoice automation with Basware Analytics and inbound e-invoicing services. Basware also will support the activation of the brewer’s many local suppliers to start sending e-invoices, and it will provide a portal for supplier collaboration.

“We are pleased to continue our relationship with our long-term customer and to further expand support to their financial operations and core financial processes into their North American operations,” Esa Tihilä, Basware CEO, said in a statement. “The customer is able to easily collaborate across the Basware Commerce Network, the largest open business network in the world, whilst driving efficiency, scale and strengthening supplier-buyer relationships.”

The brewery follows an earlier announcement in May in which India-based IT-solution provider Mphasis partnered with Basware to provide finance and accounting business-process services. Under that agreement, terms of which were not disclosed, Mphasis will embed Basware’s platform and its commerce network within its own portfolio to provide transaction based e-procurement, invoice automation services to its clients.

Basware also recently signed an agreement to deliver accounts-payable automation and eInvoicing services with an unnamed hospitality retail provider in the United Kingdom. The estimated value of the three-year agreement was 700,000 euros.

According to the 2014 Billentis report “E-Invoicing/E-Billing – Key Stakeholders as Game Changers,” which Basware sponsored, electronic and automated invoice processes can result in savings of 60 percent to 80 percent compared to traditional paper-based processes. Though private-sector businesses and solution providers have developed the market in recent years, particularly in Latin America and several countries in Europe and Asia, the main game changer for the broad-scale adoption of e-invoicing is the public sector, Basware noted recently, citing the report notes.

But many major private-sector businesses are pushing for electronic payments as well. “Large customers have encouraged millions of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to send invoices solely in an electronic format,” the company said. “SMEs are also likely to demand completely new and easy to use solutions. Solution providers are, therefore, … still in the key game-changer position, creating and providing the innovative solutions and processes, which will accelerate the uptake of eInvoicing.