Digital economy will boost efficiency and productivity in financial administration. The Real-Time Economy project supports companies in their efforts to fully automate their financial administration. Real-time economy comprises e-invoicing, digital receipts and procurement messages (digital orders and order confirmations). It is estimated that by using electronic messages companies could achieve savings totalling hundreds of millions of euros each year by reducing manual work and by cutting other costs.
E-invoice
An e-invoice is machine-readable invoice that is sent directly to a financial administration program or an online bank. E-invoice is a quick, easy and secure way to transmit invoices to customers. E-invoice provides a basis for real-time and automated financial administration. By automating your company’s financial administration, you can make your financial processes more efficient, improve data quality, reduce errors and eliminate costly manual work.
Digital receipt
Digital receipt is an electronic receipt that can be transmitted in structured (machine-readable) format from the seller to the application selected by the customer. A pdf or an image of the receipt sent as an email attachment is not a digital receipt.
Read more about digital receipts
Procurement messages
A purchase is preceded by competitive tendering, invitation to tender, tender, purchase decision and contract. However, these stages and the need to digitalise them are outside the scope of this project. The focus in the Real-Time Economy project is on electronic messages transmitted in the order process, their specifications and on expanding their use.
- A procurement message contains business information in structured and machine-processable format.
- Procurement messages are used in order and delivery processes.
- The procurement message may be an order, an order confirmation or a product catalogue.
- Procurement messages speed up the automation of business processes and make them more efficient.