[Audio: Upbeat acoustic music plays]
[Visual: The teal and white branding for eInvoicing is used, the words eInvoicing | Pūtea Tāhiko show on screen with icons representing an invoice, time savings, security and the eInvoicing logo. It is narrated by a woman in a piece to camera style. Icons pop up for around 3 seconds during the video]
[Visual: eInvoicing logo icon appears]
Narrator: So you've heard about the upcoming eInvoicing revolution and you want to start making those efficiency gains in your business right away. Well, let me assure you, you're making the right decision.
[Visual: Icon representing sending and receiving appears]
Narrator: eInvoicing is about to transform how business and government send and receive invoices.
[Visual: PDF invoice icon and email icon appears with strikes through them]
Narrator: Instead of generating a PDF invoice and emailing it through, which increases the risk of it being intercepted for fraudulent purposes, and also takes up a silly amount of time, there's now a faster and getaway.
[Visual: Icon representing fraud appears]
[Visual: Icon representing time appears]
Narrator: eInvoicing is the direct exchange of data between any two accounting systems. But my guess is that you'll hear because you can already see its value. Let me jump right in and walk you through how to set up your business to send eInvoices.
[Visual: Icon representing free appears]
Narrator: In many cases, it's a completely free or low cost process that can be activated in less than five minutes. First, you'll need to make sure that you have eInvoicing capable software for your accounting package.
Narrator: And how do you know if your accounting package is eInvoicing capable? You can either check out the growing list of enabled software providers found on the einvoicing.govt.nz website.
[Visual: The website address 'einvoicing.govt.nz' appears]
Narrator: Check out the website of your accounting package or check with your accountant bookkeeper or other relevant financial advisor. Now, once you've found out that your software or accounting package is eInvoicing capable, you'll need to check what the process is for getting it set up. Different types of software have different processes. Some in fact may have already activated the functionality for you. Finding out how to register or get set up will simply be a case of looking into your software providers eInvoicing page online, or talking to your accountant, then to send an eInvoice.
[Visual: NZBN icon appears]
Narrator: Well, one thing to note is that you will need the NZBN of the customer that you want to send an eInvoice to.
Narrator: Just like you need an email address to send an email, the NZBN is the address for where to send the eInvoice. Now you may already have this on file already. And to find out the NZBN you can go to the nzbn.govt.nz website and look their business up using the search function.
[Visual: The website address 'nzbn.govt.nz' appears]
[Screenshare of using the NZBN search function]
Narrator: If there are multiple entries and numbers for their business, you may need to reach out to them and learn which one is the correct one to use. And this might be a lengthy process for businesses with lots of customers. So the best option here is to request something called an NZBN business match.
[Visual: Short animation plays of a cartoon character searching up businesses sending the results to NZBN business match and printing the results]
Narrator: Now, this is when you export a list of your trading partners or buyers before sending it on to the NZBN business match service, which will identify these businesses' NZBNs for free. And if your customers are constantly changing, you could use NZBN's API service, which once a month requests an update of your business contacts and uploads these alongside the NZBN numbers into your accounting system, hands free.
Narrator: Wondering where in your software package to record your customer's NZBN? Well, there's likely to be a field for it in the customer contact section. Now you may however, be able to bulk upload all the NZBN data you receive back from the NZBN data request team into your accounting software to save going through this process one at a time, then comes the actual sending of the invoice part. But this process also varies depending on your software package, but can easily be found out with a quick internet search.
[Visual: Image of internet search box with the text ‘how to send an eInvoice’ appears]
Narrator: Remember here that you can only send eInvoices to buyers who can receive them.
[Visual: Icon representing sending and receiving appears]
Narrator: To work out who can receive them, you should ask them whether or not they have the capability to receive eInvoices and keep this record on file, so your accounts receivable team know.
[Visual: Three question marks appear]
[Visual: eInvoicing logo appears with a tick]
Narrator: Then when a new customers come in, let them know from the start that you can send eInvoices by adding a note to your email signature, stating that you have that capability. You may even want to add this information into the PDF invoices that you generate alongside your NZBN number.
[Visual: PDF invoice icon appears]
[Visual: 'einvoicing.govt.nz' appears at the bottom of the screen]
Narrator: Bringing awareness to the benefits eInvoicing provides means more businesses will have up on board and like a domino effect, an eInvoicing revolution will start to form. So be part of it.
[Visual: The teal and white branding for eInvoicing is used, the phrase “Smoother. Faster. Safer. It’s the next step for kiwi business.” the website address “einvoicing.govt.nz” and “eInvoicing | Pūtea Tāhiko” show on screen]
![Download eInvoicing capable badge for email signature [PNG, 78 KB]](/assets/Images/e-Invoicing/einvoicing-capable-badge-700x235.png){kind=link}