The state treasury of Finland promotes distribution of electronic accounts

The Basware company, the developer of solutions "from purchase before payment", announced in June, 2011 the conclusion of the unique agreement with the State treasury of Finland. Within this project of the company, not having opportunities to make out electronic bills, will be able to send free of charge the accounts to state bodies via the Portal of suppliers of Basware in electronic form. Thus, even the smallest enterprises with ease will pass to electronic drawing of accounts that will allow them to optimize the financial flows, to increase controllability of working capital and to reduce operating costs.

According to the new requirements published by the Government of Finland at the beginning of 2010, all accounts accepted by state bodies and organizations from suppliers should be in electronic form. Now the State treasury of Finland makes all efforts for mass distribution and use of electronic accounts. The Finnish public institutions annually process 13 million outgoing and 1.9 million entering accounts, and their databases support more than 230,000 suppliers. Until recently some of them (especially those who sent only several accounts in a year) had no access to tools for electronic drawing of accounts. Now, thanks to an initiative and a financial support of Treasury, suppliers of any scale can create via the Portal of suppliers of Basware electronic accounts for performing transactions with public institutions.

Similar initiatives gradually appear also in other states of Europe, for example, in Sweden and Denmark. In the countries of Latin America, in particular, in Mexico all transactions which cost exceeds 2,000 peso shall be supported with electronic accounts, and since January 1, 2011 the companies are obliged to confirm compliance of the entering and outgoing accounts to the adopted regulations.

Advantages of electronic accounts are clearly demonstrated by the recent report of Billentis: according to the estimates of Treasury of Finland, the cost of processing of one paper account costs to the host party 30-50 euros. Partial automation of processing of accounts allows to reduce these costs to 10 euros, and full automation will reduce cost to 1 euro. Such significant savings will manage to be reached provided that all outgoing and entering accounts of state bodies will become electronic.

In the recent report of Treasury it is noted that transition to electronic accounts will allow to reduce time of processing of accounts – by 43% for outgoing accounts and for 50% for entering. Besides, the negative impact on the environment - the volume of emissions of a carbon dioxide gas will decrease during creation of outgoing electronic accounts twice lower, than during creation of paper. For incoming documents reduction of emissions will be even more considerable - on average, more than five times.

Keyo Kettunen, the head of department of payment transactions of the State treasury of Finland, comments: "Our main task – to advance use of electronic accounts and those advantages which suppliers and buyers can achieve. And, it is not only about financial results, but also about advantage for the environment. Should pass both the commercial organizations, and public institutions to electronic drawing of accounts. We should play the most active role in promotion of exchange of electronic accounts and their transformations into the popular and public tool".

"Success or a failure of any initiative of promotion of electronic accounts depends on degree of the involvement of suppliers, irrespective of their size, location or a field of activity. The state treasury of Finland passed with one of the first in Europe to electronic accounts at the level of public institutions, having shown advantages which can receive the companies due to exchange of accounts in electronic form, - Ilkka Sikhvo, the CEO of Basware company notes. – We hope that state bodies and private companies from other countries will support this initiative. We will continue development of the relevant software solutions for suppliers of any scales and we will promote in every possible way transition of own suppliers to electronic accounts".