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Is Free Invoicing Good Value? Here’s How Top e-Invoicing Solution Providers Performed

Third party electronic invoicing providers offer free invoice submission to suppliers. While most providers make their money from AP customers, they also make money from suppliers by charging a fee for every e-Invoice submitted through their network. While the first 50 to 200 invoices processed by the solution provider are often free of charge, the remaining ones submitted are not. If those initial invoices are free, what type of value do they provide?

If someone offered me free food, free gas or free clothes, I would take it! Free is usually good, but is it always worth it? That’s the question we ask, and the results of our Perceptions Analytics study help provide an answer.

How each solution provider scored

As part of our study, suppliers told us how valuable free invoicing is and provided a rating based on their experience. Suppliers rated free invoicing as very good, but at differing degrees. Suppliers using SAP Ariba indicated free invoicing as very good at a rate of 59%. This rating is better than the 48% average for all solution providers combined. The provider that scored the lowest is Taulia, with 36% of suppliers reporting that they received excellent value from its free e-Invoicing solution.

Solutions providers with an above-average excellent rating for their free service included Tradeshift (52%) and iPayables (56%). Those providers who were close to average were Transcepta (47%), Basware (48%) and Esker (48%). Along with Taulia, Tungsten Network received a below-average score of 42%.

Suppliers responding to our study indicated, in general, that free e-Invoicing provides excellent value at a rate of 48%. Those same suppliers reported that paid invoicing offers excellent value at a rate of 59%, on average. In our next post, we go into more detail about which e-Invoicing solution providers offer the most value with their paid service.

Ernie Martin is Founder and Managing Director of Receivable Savvy. He brings over 25 years of experience in financial supply chain management, marketing and communications and draws upon his extensive experience to share knowledge and best practices with AR professionals. He currently chairs the Vendor Forum of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and his resume includes time at several well-known brands and companies such as Tungsten Network, Delta Airlines, CIGNA Healthcare and Georgia Pacific as well as a number of years as an independent consultant.

 

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