Much of the conversation around e-Invoicing has focused on one question: Can your business issue a compliant e-Invoice?
But there is another question that deserves just as much attention: Can your business receive one?
Think about your normal business cycle. Your organisation does not only sell. It also buys goods and services, receives invoices from suppliers, checks them, approves them, posts them into the accounting system, makes payments and keeps the necessary records.
As e-Invoicing becomes part of that cycle, receiving a supplier invoice is no longer simply about an invoice arriving in an email inbox.
Your systems, processes, data and people need to know what to do with it.
Receiving an e-Invoice is more than receiving a document
A PDF attachment appearing in an email may feel like an invoice has been “received”.
In an e-Invoicing environment, the picture is wider.
NRS describes an e-Invoice workflow in which invoice information is submitted and validated, with successful invoices receiving an Invoice Reference Number (IRN) and validation details. Both supplier and buyer can then be notified of the validated transaction. NRS also supports structured invoice information through formats such as XML and JSON.
For the buyer, therefore, the real question is not simply: “Did the invoice reach us?”
It is: “Can our business receive it, recognise it, process it correctly and follow it through our normal procure-to-pay process?”
What should your business be able to do?
A business that is ready to receive supplier e-Invoices should think through several practical areas.
1. Receive the invoice through the right channel
How will supplier e-Invoices enter your business?
Will they flow into an ERP or accounting system through an integration? Will your organisation use an e-Invoicing platform? Is there another approved exchange arrangement?
The answer should be clear before transactions begin arriving.
If nobody knows where an incoming e-Invoice is supposed to appear, there is already a process gap.
2. Recognise and use the invoice information
Receiving the invoice is only the beginning.
Your system or team should be able to identify the supplier, invoice number or reference, transaction details, tax information, items supplied, amounts and other information needed to process the transaction.
Where systems are integrated, the underlying invoice data also needs to map properly into the fields your ERP or accounting environment uses.
This is why e-Invoicing readiness is partly a data-readiness issue, not merely an IT project.
3. Connect the e-Invoice to your existing approval process
What happens after the invoice arrives?
Does it need to be matched to a purchase order?
Who confirms that the goods or services were received?
Who checks the tax treatment?
Who approves it for payment?
An e-Invoice should not sit outside the organisation’s normal financial controls simply because it arrived electronically.
The objective should be to connect e-Invoicing with the business processes that already govern purchasing, accounting, tax and payment.
4. Know what to do when something is wrong
Not every incoming invoice will move smoothly from receipt to payment.
There may be incorrect supplier information, wrong quantities, disputed amounts, tax issues, duplicate invoices or transactions requiring correction.
NRS’s e-Invoicing framework provides for different invoice-related documents, including credit notes and debit notes, and its exchange infrastructure provides mechanisms for invoice statuses and notifications.
Your internal process therefore needs to answer questions such as:
Who investigates an exception?
Who communicates with the supplier?
How is a correction tracked?
How does Finance know when the matter has been resolved?
Those are operational questions, not merely technical ones.
5. Make sure the right people can see what is happening
Finance, Tax, Procurement and IT may each have a part to play.
The organisation should be able to identify incoming invoices, monitor their status, resolve exceptions and retain an appropriate audit trail.
If important invoice events are happening within an integration but the business users responsible for the transaction cannot see them, the organisation may be technically connected without being operationally ready.
A simple readiness test
Ask your Finance, Tax, Procurement and IT teams this:
If one of our major suppliers sends us a compliant e-Invoice tomorrow, what exactly happens next?
Can they explain the journey confidently, from receipt to validation, internal processing, approval, payment and record keeping?
If the answer is “we are not sure”, that is useful information.
It identifies an area that should be addressed before e-Invoicing becomes business-as-usual.
Do not prepare only for the invoices you send
E-Invoicing readiness needs to consider both sides of the transaction.
Your business may have spent considerable time thinking about how sales invoices will leave your ERP and enter the NRS e-Invoicing environment.
The purchasing side deserves the same attention.
Because successful e-Invoicing is not simply about generating compliant invoices.
It is about ensuring that the entire invoice lifecycle can work reliably within the business.
At Vi-M Professional Solutions, our focus is to help businesses understand that lifecycle and prepare the systems, processes, data and controls required for practical NRS e-Invoicing implementation.
Explore implementation with eNvoice: www.envoice.ng