TALKING BUSINESS
e-invoicing solution cash flow
management can get significantly
accelerated because both a seller
and a buyer can instantly check
on the payment status or verify
the invoice status (to pay, paid,
overdue, etc.) in the system. Better
cash flow visibility allows you to
manage accounts payable and
accounts receivable optimally.
Consequently, businesses using
electronic invoicing by far improve
the timing of VAT recovery on
costs.
Putting VAT considerations aside
for a moment, to understand the
full potential of e-invoicing, it is
important to realise just how time-
consuming and costly paper-based
invoice management is. In order
to process each and every paper
invoice, both sellers and buyers
have to perform a number of
activities which become redundant
upon adopting e-invoicing,
including document printing,
mailroom services, postal services
among others.
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What impact will VAT
introduction have on
document archiving
and how can electronic
archiving facilitate this
process?
Starting from 2018, all businesses
implementing VAT will be required
to keep a record of transaction
documents i.e. invoices, records,
accounts, VAT returns, etc.
Storing paper documents comes
with additional administrative
burden and extra cost incurred
e.g. for space rental. Against
this background, focusing on
electronic archiving appears to be
a reasonable move. Why? With
electronic archiving businesses
can have convenient access to all
transaction documents for any tax
audit and easily comply with the
legal requirements.
It is crucial for electronic archiving
solution to guarantee proper
security measures. I can risk
saying that documents kept in
the electronic archive are actually
safer than paper documents in
the traditional archive. To achieve
proper data security, I would
recommend to opt for e e-archive
solutions that incorporate time
stamping and access control.
Time stamp confirms that a given
document has not been changed
since its creation day as well as
guarantees a correct issuer. For
access control, an entrepreneur can
grant access to the archive only
to selected users and is always in
the know about who has viewed
or edited a given transaction
document and when. Also, in the
event of a tax audit it is possible
to grant a temporary access both
to a printable document and an
original file of this document to
the audit authority. In the light
of the binding law on electronic
transactions in the UAE, for
example, both time stamping
and access control meet the legal
requirements stated in the Federal
Law No. (1) of 2006 On Electronic
Commerce and Transactions.
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