Compliance an eInvoicing opportunity in disguise for Buddle Findlay

The background

Buddle Findlay is a leading commercial law firm with over 300 staff across Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch servicing clients globally. 

Like many government suppliers, Buddle Findlay heard from New Zealand Government Procurement in February 2024 about the expectation that All-of-Government (AoG) providers transition to eInvoicing.

As a long-standing partner to government, they take delivery of their services seriously and enthusiastically set out to make the transition to eInvoicing as soon as possible.

“Our aim at the time was to meet the new requirements, be a good trading partner and potentially shorten payment times,” says Buddle Findlay Billing Management Coordinator, Katie Guest.

“We were aware that many clients had eInvoicing targets set by the government, and that motivated us to help them meet their key performance indicators.”

Buddle Findlay innovated early and quickly to integrate its financial systems with the Peppol eInvoicing network, ensuring they were able to collaborate with its government clients and help meet their eInvoicing targets.

How compliance turned to opportunity 

One of the first benefits to emerge soon after going live in August 2024 was the dramatic shift in payment times.

Before eInvoicing, some of Buddle Findlay’s clients took several weeks to process payments. Afterwards, that shifted to a few weeks and in some cases, the next day.

“Across 22 clients, average payment times dropped to just 5.5 days, with some clients now paying on average 16 days faster – over 2 weeks earlier than before eInvoicing.

The most significant change was from a client who reduced their payment time from 39 days to just 13 days.

The system still needs some refinement particularly when it comes to purchase orders as this holds most of our invoices up from being paid or submitted. However, we anticipate further improvements in 2026 as processes continue to streamline for all clients” says Katie.

The real opportunity in disguise

But the even bigger and unexpected benefit of implementing eInvoicing has been the substantially reduced administrative load.

Prior to eInvoicing, up to 30 staff would spend hours each month drafting, attaching and sending PDF invoices. With eInvoicing, this entire process has been consolidated down to one person, and email volumes have dropped.

There has also been a significant reduction in administrative resources required for debtor management and chasing up unpaid invoices.

“The unexpected reduction in debtor-management administration has been one of the most valuable outcomes of all,” says Katie.

Building a stronger, more collaborative client experience

Buddle Findlay’s phased rollout and focus on working collaboratively with clients has been critical to success, onboarding 2 to 3 clients each month allowing them to understand requirements and ensure a smooth transition.

Liaising with finance teams to identify differences, establishing billing requirements up front, and conducting testing before going live have all strengthened client relationships.

“We have had consistently positive feedback from clients about this approach. It has been instrumental to our success.

We can now leverage our experience and knowledge to assist other government agencies, and in time other clients, in moving to eInvoicing” says Katie.