Storecove, an e-invoicing solution provider that established its Asia-Pacific presence in November last year, has announced the first group of companies to sign up as Storecove partners in the Asia-Pacific region.

All current Storecove partners in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore are utilising Storecove’s Peppol Access Point as a Service product. Storecove’s modern API makes it easy to integrate securely with its partners’ software platforms to offer e-invoicing functionality as part of their customer solutions.

Storecove’s APAC partners include: ACMO, Axiapac and Exobiz (Australia); Desktop Imaging (NZ); Pacifictech (Australia, NZ and Asia); Innosys Pte Ltd (Singapore); and Xero Singapore.

“By using Storecove’s Access Point services, companies in the region can reduce the development time and accelerate the adoption of e-invoicing services within their customer base,” said Simon Foster, Storecove’s APAC general manager.

Peppol has been adopted by the Australian Taxation Office, the NZ Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the Singapore Government as the standard for the exchange of electronic invoices (e-invoices) between organisations and different accounting systems, and across international borders. There is also a joint initiative (the ANZEIB) between the Australian and New Zealand governments to implement e-invoicing across both countries.

The Australian Government estimates that with 1.2 billion invoices exchanged in Australia each year, the adoption of e-invoicing will generate savings to the economy of $28 billion over 10 years. To encourage the takeup of e-invoicing and also to support small business, from 1 January 2020, Australian Government agencies began paying e-invoices within five days as well as paying interest on any late payments. This applies to contracts up to $1 million where both the buyer and supplier use Peppol e-invoicing systems. The NSW Government is also encouraging e-invoicing, announcing similar payment terms, with other Australian states set to follow.

“E-invoicing helps businesses improve efficiency, reduce cost, enjoy faster payment and be more environmentally friendly.The e-invoicing networks established in Australia, NZ and Singapore are an extension of the International Peppol eDelivery Network, allowing businesses to transact internationally with other linked companies. Unlike sending a PDF file by an insecure e-mail, the process can be fully automated so there’s no need for either business to manually handle the invoice. It also works even if the two accounting systems are different, because an international standard – Peppol – allows these systems to ‘speak’ to each other,” continued Foster.

ACMO is a provider of intelligent automation, cognitive data capture and robotic process automation solutions for accounts payable automation and procure-to-pay solutions. Using Storecove, the ACMO Accounts Payable Solution (APAY) now has the ability to receive e-invoices, providing quicker processing and instant cash-flow analysis.

“Our partnership with Storecove has helped ACMO provide additional capabilities to our customers in their journey towards a paperless office, as more companies are adopting e-invoicing for better transparency and lesser operating expense,” said Joseph Joy, managing director, ACMO.

Desktop Imaging provides imaging, software and business process automation solutions to NZ government, corporate and not-for-profit organisations. As part of its Accounts Payable as a Service (APaaS) offering, Desktop Imaging works with Storecove to help clients both send and receive e-invoices using the Peppol e-invoicing network.

“E-invoicing is set to become the new standard for how NZ businesses transact with each other and we are proud to be counted amongst the first service providers to offer this functionality to our clients,” said Stephen Beighton, Sales Manager and Director, Desktop Imaging.