E-invoicing is emerging as a critical component of modern business operations as digital transformation accelerates. Yet organizations face mounting challenges: increasingly complex regulatory requirements, technical integration hurdles, and the need to maintain operational efficiency while adapting to country-specific mandates.
One of our customers, TVH, is a leading off-road machinery parts specialist based in Belgium. Xavier Van hoorebeke, Product Owner Finance at TVH, recently shared valuable insights into how the company navigated these challenges by partnering with Axway to implement a streamlined, compliant e-invoicing system.
Their experience offers a blueprint for organizations looking to transform regulatory compliance from a burden into a strategic advantage in today’s rapidly evolving digital business landscape.
TVH’s digital evolution: from paper invoices to global e-documentation
Founded in 1969 and headquartered in Waregem, Belgium, TVH delivers products and services to keep industrial equipment such as forklifts, industrial vehicles, construction, and agricultural machinery running smoothly.
A truly global business, TVH operates from 81 locations all over the world. With more than 88,000 active customers across 182 countries, the company processes around 20,000 customer orders every day.
Since 2009, TVH has gradually moved from traditional printed invoices to digital delivery and archiving. What began as a desire to simplify invoice archives, explains Xavier Van hoorebeke, became a journey driven by growing customer demands for seamless digital integration – and soon, regional regulatory requirements entered into the equation.
TVH adopted electronic delivery methods like mail sealed PDFs, and later implement structured data exchange with EDI through Axway.
This journey began before the creation and widespread adoption of standards such as EN-16930, the European Norm. This means that alongside many other companies at the time, TVH had to develop some level of standardization and automation to simplify the receiving and sending of different formats. Some customers in the U.S., for example, only wanted ANSI X12, others requested XML documents, and so forth.
Axway eInvoicing provided the tools and guidance to lay a structured digital foundation.
Xavier Van hoorebeke describes how TVH implemented a canonical with Axway for their billing data exchange.
“We made it more structured using one single format for these different EDI customers, and then Axway made sure that these customers received it in their native formats,” says Xavier.
“And there was a need for an end-to-end digital process, so we also implemented the electronic routing to make sure that your invoice is handed over at the correct spot.”
Building agility with Axway: meeting regulatory challenges head-on
Over the years, TVH gained the agility to respond to different needs as they arose.
For example, early e-invoicing mandates primarily affected B2G (business-to-government) transactions, and didn’t immediately concern TVH. But in the context of a larger movement to continuous transaction control (CTC), Italian TAX authorities mandated B2B e-invoicing in 2019.
Xavier Van hoorebeke explains that their team needed to promptly adapt their processes to comply with the SDI (Sistema di Interscambio) platform.
Later integration with companies from the Nordics and Belgium required use of a different format, Peppol. Thanks to a single data exchange format, Axway eInvoicing abstracted these technical complexities, allowing Xavier’s team to focus on the business requirements.
Beyond digitization: managing regulatory complexity in a global marketplace
The complexity of the regulatory environment is a significant pain point for many multinational organizations today. It’s no longer just about switching from paper to digital invoices, but instead dealing with various digital formats and regulatory requirements.
Xavier Van hoorebeke describes how TVH is focused on establishing a roadmap to make their business more agile ahead of coming disruptions – especially as they navigate their own digital transformation.
“Don’t forget that from a business perspective this has a huge impact,” says Xavier. “While it used to be very easy, you would just print your invoice and send it by means of an address in your system.
When you’re talking about e-invoicing and even CTC mandates, then often you need to implement special requirements. So, you need to make sure that your master data is clean, that it’s structured.”
It is crucial to establish a common process, apply flexibility, and have feedback mechanisms in place.
As other countries such as Malaysia and Singapore now consider implementing standards, leveraging existing norms for reuse is a smart way to automate compliance from one region to another. It’s a best practice we at Axway have long supported.
See also: Making use of the European Norm for all your document exchanges? Smart!
Future-proof your e-invoicing strategy with Axway eInvoicing
On your journey to truly digital operations, it’s important to find automation benefits in e-invoicing implementations.
Navigating the ever-changing waters of global e-invoicing compliance may seem daunting, especially amidst evolving country-specific regulations.
But with strategic planning, leveraging standardized frameworks, and relying on expert guidance from Axway, organizations can confidently maneuver the regulatory environment and reap the numerous benefits of e-invoicing.
Thank you to Xavier for sharing TVH’s experience with e-invoicing – and how Axway helped overcome obstacles and achieve compliance.
The e-invoicing evolution is here to stay, and we at Axway are committed to helping you navigate it successfully.
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