The companies in Serbia can pay their bills by electronic invoices recently, which, as claimed by experts, accelerates and facilitates foreign operations. For an average Serbian company, moving to online payments would mean annual savings of up to half a million.
Invoice issuing is the 11th most expensive procedure for the companies. If an average company would move to electronic invoice payments, the calculation shows that the savings may amount to half of a million dinars per year - says Jelena Bojović, regulatory reform director of the National Alliance for Local Economic Development (NALED).
She claims that such savings would amount to billions of dinars, if companies would move to electronic exchange for most operations including exchange of documents.
- However, this requires education of business men and women, and perhaps the Government should, for their own good, force them, by regulations to operate electronically - says Bojović.
IT company SVM says for “24 sata” that they will move to e-invoice payments, since it saves time and money.
- We export software, so it is very important to move to electronic invoices as soon as possible, since it will facilitate our business with foreign clients. We support complete move to electronic operations. We were among the first to provide digital certificates of the Posts of Serbia for electronic operations - say representatives of the SVM company.
- 5 to 10 invoices per day are sent by average small and medium companies
- an employee will spend one hour for their preparation and going to the post office to send
- if only 5 invoices per day are sent, it is approximately 100 per month, that is 1.200 invoices per year
- post costs are 50 dinars per invoice, which amounts to savings of 60.000 dinars per year
- if an employee does not spend one hour to go to the post office, this will, with an average wage of 300 dinars per hour save 300.000 dinars per year
- one memo used for the invoice of the company is 4,5 dinars
- branded envelope used for sending an invoice is 12,5 dinars
- 20.000 dinars annual cost for memos and envelopes
- annual savings from electronic invoice payments is approximately half a million dinars
Slovenian company “Elektro Maribor” is using e-invoices for some time, since the clients asked.
- E-invoice is an investment in the future, we have introduced it several years ago, since our customers asked. We have increased competitiveness and we should also note that we have reduced delivery time. No more paper, or printing - says, for “24 sata”, Mitja Prešern, deputy director of this company.
The possibility to use e-invoices in Serbia was offered by companies "Halkom" and "Asseco", and the solution is, as they say, available to everybody with access to the Internet and mobile phone. E-invoice enables customers to, using the existing e-bank channel, exchange electronic documents with business partners, clients or buyers. Also, the clients may automate operations by importing or exporting electronic documents using this channel, or simply archive them.
The article is taken in full from the magazine "24 sata".