Over six in ten Australian small businesses believe they could save up to 10 hours every week by adopting eInvoicing, according to new research from business management platform MYOB. The study also shows eInvoicing will allow SMEs to achieve cost savings of $11,000 every year through the reduction of manual entry with the elimination of the need to email an invoice or create a PDF.
The research has been released to coincide with the ATO’s eInvoicing Week (15-21 August 2022) which is designed to persuade small businesses to embrace eInvoicing.
The feedback from the study confirms invoicing is a significant component of an SME’s administrative tasks, with 83 per cent spending up to 20 hours a month issuing invoices. Three-quarters of respondents issue invoices at least weekly and one in 10 say invoicing takes between 20 and 49 hours of their time every month.
When asked what they viewed to be the benefits of eInvoicing, the top advantages listed by survey respondents were faster processing (58 per cent), a reduction in admin time (51 per cent) and a reduction in time to payment (44 per cent).
“Saving just five of the hours spent invoicing every week is equivalent to 260 hours – or 10 full days – each year,” MYOB Chief Employee Experience Officer Helen Lea said. “That’s a lot of time SMEs could be spending on other activities that’ll grow their business.
“We’re delighted to see awareness of eInvoicing has raised significantly since we last took a temperature check in January 2021,” Lea added. “Sixty-four per cent of SMEs had heard of eInvoicing this July, versus 43 per cent 18 months ago. However, now’s the time to turn that awareness into action and take advantage of this huge cost and time saving opportunity.”
MYOB has partnered with access point provider MessageXchange to provide its ATO accredited eInvoicing solution, with send and receive capability now live and available to MYOB customers at no additional cost as part of their software subscription.
John Delaney, Managing Director of MessageXchange, said eInvoicing Week represents an opportunity for businesses who don’t feel they know enough about eInvoicing to learn more and give it a try.
“For more than half (55 per cent) of those who are yet to make the switch to eInvoicing, it’s because they don’t feel they know enough about it,” Delaney said. “eInvoicing Week is all about the small-business support community coming together to offer information and advice that will demystify eInvoicing and make the process of getting online as simple as possible.
“eInvoicing takes no more than a couple of hours to explore the options and get set up,” Delaney added. “Using eInvoicing Week as the moment to find those handful of minutes to give eInvoicing a try, could end up being one of the best business decisions a small business can make this year.”
The Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman Bruce Billson said he enthusiastically encouraged small businesses to adopt eInvoicing.
“It is a great way to enable faster payment, it cuts the administrative burden and is more secure than posted or emailed invoices, so it reduces the chance of invoice fraud or scams,” Billson said. “About 1.2 billion invoices are exchanged in Australia every year but 20 per cent are sent to the wrong person and 30 per cent have incorrect information. It costs around $30 to process a paper invoice while an e-invoice costs less than $10.”
