Europe Makes the Humble Invoice a CFO Priority

Watch more: Need to Know With Billtrust’s Sjoerd Janssen

The next phase of Europe’s regulatory overhaul is centered on the humble invoice. On digitizing it. And as global and EU-member businesses prepare for the 27-nation-bloc’s upcoming e-invoicing regulations, the policy push is exposing longstanding inefficiencies throughout the accounts receivable (AR) process.

“Governments are now forcing companies to look at their invoicing process end to end,” Sjoerd Janssen, VP and GM, Europe at Billtrust, told PYMNTS. “The real bottleneck in accounts receivable isn’t really compliance. It’s more about how fast cash can come back after the invoice is sent.”

Across Europe, governments are moving aggressively toward continuous transaction controls (CTCs), mandatory electronic invoicing frameworks and digital tax reporting systems designed to reduce fraud, improve transparency and modernize tax collection. Rather than treating e-invoicing as a technical compliance project, a growing number of CFOs are viewing the mandates as a catalyst for enterprise-wide financial modernization.

While compliance remains non-negotiable, Janssen argued that the larger strategic opportunity lies in using regulatory change as a trigger to rethink how cash moves through the business.

“The important mindset shift is: don’t treat those mandates as a compliance project solely,” he said. “Treat them as a transformational trigger.”

“If you are touching invoicing anyway, how do you use this moment to modernize the entire order-to-cash cycle?” Janssen added. “If we’re investing time in this anyway and we need to apply resources, let’s fix the entire chain while we’re at it … Any CFO who treats it like a pure IT project will essentially solve for compliance and nothing else.”

How E-Invoicing Mandates Are Driving a Broader AR Revolution

For multinational organizations, the immediate priority is straightforward: comply with new mandates or risk penalties, delayed payments and operational disruption. But the process of becoming compliant often reveals a deeper reality.

Invoice validation failures, processing delays, disputes and manual workflows have direct implications for liquidity, particularly within today’s business environment. With their cash flow and operational efficiency under pressure, organizations are recognizing that compliance investments can generate broader returns.

“Many companies have digital invoicing. But when the invoice then hits a manual cash application team, or a dispute queue, or a collections team working off standalone tools, you can be compliant, but your cash is still moving slowly,” Janssen said.

“The biggest concern is more about fragmented AR processes, not just the replacement or introduction of e-invoicing,” he added.

That fragmentation is emerging as a major concern for finance executives, particularly in industries characterized by high transaction volumes and thin margins. As a result, organizations that initially approached e-invoicing as a regulatory necessity are beginning to see a broader modernization opportunity.

“Once companies start preparing for compliance, they begin asking bigger questions,” Janssen said. “How efficiently are invoices reaching customers? How quickly are disputes being resolved? How much visibility do we have into payment behavior? Those questions quickly become more important than the compliance requirement itself.”

From Paper Elimination to Process Intelligence

In markets such as the Nordics and Benelux region, where e-invoicing adoption is already relatively mature, the benefits of pairing compliance with broader automation are becoming increasingly visible.

“The path to compliance is most of the time only a small step. The focus automatically goes more into achieving higher cash application rates, fewer disputes, and meaningful reductions in DSO,” Janssen said. “We’re really moving towards businesses viewing this more like a critical tool that can support strategic initiatives of the wider organization.”

Organizations that fail to pursue those opportunities may find themselves compliant but still underperforming. Janssen pointed to several warning signs: stagnant DSO despite successful e-invoicing implementation, reconciliation teams that continue to expand, and collections departments still relying heavily on spreadsheets.

“Most businesses globally, but specifically in Europe, first worked on their ERP transformations,” Janssen said. “The majority of businesses touched AP first. Now they’re noticing that ERP is not cutting it on the accounts receivable process in the depth that a lot of businesses are asking for.”

Hed added, “There’s ground to cover here, and there’s absolutely opportunity that you can grasp.”

Janssen pointed to several mechanisms that contribute to stronger financial performance. Faster matching processes allow cash to be recognized sooner, while automated dispute resolution reduces revenue trapped in lengthy communication cycles and predictive collections help organizations intervene earlier and reduce bad debt risk. At the same time, AR automation simultaneously lowers operational costs and frees finance teams to focus on higher-value activities.

“When accounts receivable runs on a unified platform, the effect only compounds,” Janssen said. “It gives a CFO real-time visibility into what is owed, what is at risk, and what is coming in. That is not an efficiency game. That is a shift in financial control.”

“Compliance is mandatory,” he said. “But efficiency, that’s optional. That’s your choice.”

Watch the full interview with Billtrust Vice President/General Manager, Europe Sjoerd Janssen to hear more about:

Why e-invoicing mandates are becoming a CFO priority. Janssen explains how compliance deadlines are driving broader conversations around working capital, cash flow and order-to-cash transformation.

How fragmented AR processes undermine cash performance. The discussion examines why manual cash application, disputes and collections workflows continue to slow cash conversion even in digitally invoiced environments.

How compliance can become a catalyst for capital efficiency. Janssen outlines how unified AR platforms can reduce DSO, improve visibility and turn accounts receivable into a real-time cash generation engine.