Electronic Invoicing (E-Invoicing)
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Memorandum 15-19, Improving Government Efficiency and Saving Taxpayer Dollars Through Electronic Invoicing directs agencies to manage invoices for federal procurements electronically.
Vendors must have the option to submit their invoices electronically (Government Paperwork Elimination Act). One way of doing this is by using a Federal Shared Service Provider (FSSP) that offers e-invoicing.
The problem FIT was solving
The Department of the Treasury was looking for a more efficient and transparent way to handle invoicing for both federal agencies and commercial suppliers rather than for them to continue sending, receiving, and processing paper.
The benefits of FIT's solution
E-invoicing is part of the solution FIT helped with and promoted for agencies to use FSSPs.
E-invoicing helps agencies in these ways:
- Vendors are responsible for entering invoices and increasing accuracy.
- Processing invoices is more efficient with less manual work, fewer steps, and no routing of paper or e-mails for approval.
- Agencies don't have to develop or maintain individual systems.
This service also helps the federal government as a whole because it:
- promotes greater efficiency and transparency, supporting Executive Order 13576 to cut waste
- reduces the cost and inefficiency of developing and maintaining individual agency solutions
- makes it easier for vendors to do business with the government by having a common portal for them to use
- saves the government up to $450 million per year (a 25% - 45% savings per invoice by moving from a primarily paper-based system to full electronic invoicing)
- centralizes invoice information and related payment data, giving earlier and greater visibility into how agencies spend their money
- improves the Department of the Treasury's cash management
- allows more accurate financial reporting for everyone, including the public