Deutsche Post to develop SME digital invoicing platform
Deutsche Post is teaming up with German software company DATEV to jointly develop a new electronic invoicing service for small and medium-sized businesses. The new service will be based on Deutsche Post’s digital mail platform E-Postbrief and DATEV’s data centre, allowing organisations to send out invoices electronically via a secure system.
It will mean both the companies involved and their accountants are able to gain direct, secure access to the invoices for processing.
DATEV, a cooperative group based in Nuremberg, already hosts the financial accounts for around 2.5m companies on its systems thanks to their existing accountancy sector clients.
About 55,000 of these companies already use an online document management system to digitally store bills and provide information to tax advisors electronically.
Deutsche Post said partnering with DATEV would mean providing its secure digital postal mail service for the sending of secure information, so that billing information on invoices cannot be changed, but can be checked and paid easily by contracting companies, and processed directly by accountants.
“Faster and easier”
Ralph Wiegand, Deutsche Post’s E-Postbrief chief executive, said small and medium-sized businesses need clear management processes, and that as a result the E-Postbrief service offered the right communications channel.
“The future collaborative solution with DATEV will give entrepreneurs a solution that will make their accounting system noticeably faster and easier,” he said.
“For DATEV as partners, it means in particular audit-proof archiving, complication-free processing and a direct connection to the accountant.”
Wolfgang Stegmann, the deputy chief executive at DATEV, said adding integration with E-Postbrief was an important step in its capabilities for handling electronic invoices.
“We want to close the existing gaps in our processes to offer companies an integrated, electronic and secure solution for their accounting transactions,” said Stegmann.
“E-Postbrief is set up in this market for a large group of users, it provides a platform with a lot of potential for our customers.”
