TRANSKRIPT 🔗
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If your business is already wishing, correctness consistent data workouts or uncertainty about whether the process is really working, this podcast is for you.
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I'm Dunley and I help businesses look beyond successful submission to the data, processes, and controls behind e-invoicing.
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Because validation does not always mean everything is correct.
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Why e-invoicing confusion persists even after your software is live?
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And what owners should clarify first?
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This is the topic we're going to discuss today.
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Your e-invoice software is live.
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Invoices are being submitted.
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The accounting team has been trained.
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Some documents have already been validated successfully.
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So as a business owner, you may reasonably expect the confusion to reduce.
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But instead, questions keep coming back.
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Should we issue an e-inverse for this?
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Who should appear as the buyer?
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What happens with the deposit?
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Is this reimbursement treated the same way?
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Why does this branch handle it differently?
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Why is finance still correcting information before submission?
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At some point, an owner may start wondering, if the system is already working, why are we still confused?
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The answer is that going live with the software does not automatically mean the business has clarified how e-invoicing applies to the way it actually operates.
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That is the distinction I want to explore today.
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Because for many businesses, the problem after go live is no longer can our software submit an e-invoice?
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The problem becomes do we understand what should happen before the software submits it?
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Imagine a business that has successfully implemented its e-invoice software.
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Standard sales are going through.
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Finance understands the basic submission process.
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Management believes the difficult part is over.
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Then a customer pays a deposit.
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Someone asks finance what to do.
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Finance gives an answer.
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The following week, another deposit arises through a branch.
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The branch handles it differently.
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Later, sales agree to a special arrangement with a customer, but finance only finds out when the invoice is being prepared.
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Then there is a refund.
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Then an overseas suppliers, then an employee reimbursement.
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Suddenly the questions do not feel like software questions anymore.
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That is because they are not.
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There are questions about the transaction itself.
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And that is one reason confusion often survives the technology implementation.
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Software works best when the rule is already known.
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If the business knows what transaction has occurred, who the parties are, when the transaction should be recognized within the e-invoice process, what information is required, and what happens when something changes, then the technology has something clear to process.
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But when those methods are uncertain, the software does not remove the uncertainty.
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It may simply process whichever assumption was entered into it.
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That is why a technically functioning system can sit inside a business that is still operationally confused.
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The software can be live while the operating understanding behind it is still incomplete.
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There is another reason confusion persists.
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Different departments see different parts of the same transaction.
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Sales may understand what was agreed with the customer.
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Operations may know whether the job has actually been completed.
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Finance may understand what has been entered into the accounting system.
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Management may know why a commercial exception was approved.
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IT may know how the system has been configured, but no single department necessarily sees the whole transaction from beginning to the end.
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That creates a problem.
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Everyone can be correct about their own part and still have a gap between departments.
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For example, sales may say, we already told the customer they could pay 30% up front.
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Finance may say, we were never told that this transaction had a special arrangement.
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Operation may say, we thought billing only started after installation.
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The software does not resolve that disagreement.
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The confusion exists before the data reach the system.
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This is why I think business owners need to distinguish between technical confusion and business process confusion.
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Technical confusion sounds like why did the
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API reject this document?
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Why is this field not mapping?
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Why is the integration not transmitting?
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Those are system-related questions.
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Business process confusion sounds different.
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Who owns this information?
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When should this transaction enter the invoicing process?
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Why are two departments treating the same situation differently?
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What happens when the transaction does not fit our normal procedure?
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Who decides what to do when there is uncertainty?
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Those questions cannot always be solved by asking the software provider to configure the system.
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The underlying issue may be that the business itself has not yet reached a common understanding, and this leads to another source of confusion.
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Businesses often assume that because the e-invoice has been validated, the underlying process must also be correct.
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But validation and business understanding are not the same thing.
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A system can confirm that required information has been received in an acceptable format.
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That does not necessarily answer every question about why the transaction was treated in a particular way.
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For management, this matters.
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Because a document moving successfully through the platform may create confidence.
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But if finance is repeatedly correcting data from sales, if branches are using different practices, if one experienced employee handles every unusual transaction, or if staff regularly asked which option should I choose for this?
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Then the business may still have unresolved implementation issues even though submissions is technically working.
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So what should owners clarify first?
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Not every detail, and certainly not every feel inside the software.
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Start conceptually with three areas.
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The first is what transaction actually exists in our business?
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That sounds obvious, but businesses often think in terms of accounting documents rather than commercial activity.
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Standard sales may be straightforward, but what about deposits, refunds, credit notes, employee claims, cross-border purchases, intercompany charges, platform transactions, special customer arrangements.
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The point is not that every one of these creates a problem.
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The point is that an owner should know whether the business has transactions that
do not follow the normal sales and purchase path, because those are often where confusion first appears.
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The second area is who influences the information before it reaches finance?
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If sales collects customer information, sales affecting e-invoicing.
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If operations determine when work is complete, operations affect e-invoicing.
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If procurements negotiate suppliers arrangements, procurement may affect e-invoicing.
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If branch staff collect deposits, branches may affect e-invoicing.
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This is why treating e-invoicing as a finance-only responsibility can create blind spots.
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Finance may be the department submitting the documents, but finance is often receiving information that was created, changed, or approved somewhere else.
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So when owner asks why finance is struggling after go life, the answer may be because finance is dealing with the consequences of decision made outside finance.
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The third area is where does the standard process stop being enough?
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This may be the most important questions.
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A good operating process handles routine transactions efficiently, but not every transaction is routine.
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Sometimes the parties are unusual.
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Sometimes the payment timing changes.
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Sometimes money moves before the transaction is complete.
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Sometimes a foreign party is involved.
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Sometimes an adjustment happens after the original e-invoice.
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Sometimes the business simply has not encountered that situation before.
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The owner does not need to personally know the technical answer to every one of those questions.
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But management should know that some transactions require clarification before they are treated as normal.
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That is a very special capability.
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This is where my 3CE invoice implementation frameworks begins with clarifying.
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Before a business tries to make everything consistent, it needs enough clarity about what is trying to standardize.
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That means understanding the important transaction journeys, recognizing where the current process contains uncertainty, and identifying which matters require commercial, accounting, tax, legal or technical clarification.
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Only after that does consistency become meaningful.
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Because if the business standardizes an unclear process, it may simply make the confusion more repeatable.
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And if it automates an unclear assumption, the system may repeat that assumption faster.
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Here is today's clarity check.
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As a business owner, ask yourself, when my team is confused about e-invoicing, what are they actually confused about?
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Is it the software or is it the transaction?
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Are they asking how to enter something into the system?
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Or are they really asking what the transaction means and who should decide?
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Are the same questions appearing repeatedly?
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And do those questions tend to happen when responsibilities moves between departments?
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You do not need to solve everything from that exercise.
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But the answer can tell you whether the confusion is mainly technical or whether it sits deeper in the business process.
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And this is the point I want business owners to remember.
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It involves confusion after goal life does not automatically mean the software implementation has failed.
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It may mean the organization has reached the next layer of implementation.
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The technology is working.
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Now the business has to clarify how its real transaction, real people, and real decision fits around the technology.
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That is why e-invoicing should not be viewed as simply as a software project with a go live date.
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It is an operating process.
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And operating processes requires shared understanding.
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If the same question keeps coming back after your software is live, the first question may not be what else do we need to configure?
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It may be what have we not yet clarified?
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That is where better e-invoice implementation begins.
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Before you go, here is your clarity question.
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Is e-invoicing genuinely under control in your business?
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Or is your team simply fixing problems as they appear?
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If you are not sure, start with my complimentary business clarity chat.
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You will find the link in the episode description.