Ask HN: Why there is so much paper use in Small business for invoicing purpose? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why there is so much paper use in Small business for invoicing purpose?

9 pointszainsheikh12 comments

I have an idea that I need to discuss with this amazing community.

I am working on a product that will be integrated with Quickbooks, Zoho, Fresh books, and other famous accounting and inventory solutions that allows you to send your invoices directly to your customer's smartphones on an app. Your invoices will be saved with your customers in an organized manner.

This will enable you to stay connected with your customers, remind them of pending payments, automate your payment procedures, and save your paper and printer expenses and they can see their history of invoices with you in their app.

I just wanted to know if there's a need for such a product. It would help me a lot, be my ugly mirror, and be critical of this as this would save a lot of our hours.

View on HN

The reason paper is used for invoices is because lots of people want it that way.

Paper invoice is well established and understood by everybody (your solution may not be).

Paper invoice doesn't require owning a 3G-connected smartphone with active app store account backed by email and credit card and passwords and recovery codes (your solution may require such).

Access to paper invoice cannot be unilaterally revoked by the invoice issuer (might not be the case in your solution).

Paper invoice will just be there for years and years, and can be presented when required by IRS audit in 20 years (might not be the case in your solution).

There are organizations that email me the invoices as attached PDFs. This is fine, as it can be easily turned into a paper invoice. There are organizations that email me the link to invoices. This is not fine, as the link may expire, so I have to remember to download the invoice shortly. There are organizations that require me to download an app of their choice to view their invoice, and I absolutely refuse to deal with them. My phone is there for my convenience, not their convenience, and I choose the apps that run on my phone, while they don't have any say in the matter.

Thank you for your time and enormous feedback. But don't you think that there is a high time we should change the paper culture. As most of the paper invoices becomes a part of dustbins.

Internet is becoming a necessity. And mostly people are interconnected. Invoices can be shared with click of a button if available online.

I totally agree with all of your cases but then I think if it is executed with the right direction. It could be of value.

> most of the paper invoices becomes a part of dustbins

As paper is both degradable and renewable, I really don't see the problem here.

> And mostly people are interconnected

Not my parents (or their generation) that find themselves in a position of modern illiterates.

> if available online

As I mentioned, online availability can change; offline availability cannot.

> directly to your customer's smartphones on an app.

If this company requires an app for me to receive invoices and make payments, then this is a company I will no longer do business with.

> I just wanted to know if there's a need for such a product.

No.

Thank you for your feedback. It can save lot of time.

Your idea assumes that customers are far more invested in collecting / curating / admiring invoices than they really are.

What if a customer is a business or government unit - where A/P is probably handled by multiple people, who change over time? Those guys work by rules & procedures, which are set by some higher-up. Higher-ups usually don't like "we gotta do things different with this one" vendors. Nor to see an A/P clerk futzing with her smart phone yet again, on company time.

Or, what when a customer's CPA wants to see the invoices, to make sure stuff was categorized correctly for tax purposes? "All the invoices from Supplier #123 are in this app, which you'll have to install in your smart phone...". That may not go over well. Especially if the CPA mentions it as a reason for needing more billable hours to do the job this year.

I have studied bill.com model. They are providing such services. And customers CPA are their direct customers/users. I think this can save their time. Because they have their invoices organized in an app already.

I totally agree with your first case scenario. I didn't think of this.

There are established digital invoicing standards. For example, in Switzerland eBill; in Germany ZUGFeRD and more recently XRechnung. These have been around for 20 years.

I didn't know that. I will look into it.

Google "SEPA Request-to-Pay (SRTP)".

Also have a look at the "U.S. e-Invoicing Pilot".

EDIFACT ist an old global standard from the 70ies that is still in use for invoicing. Only B2B and B2G.

How did you come about this information though?

I am a second time founder. My first product is an erp which is successfully working in different markets. And I observe the use of paper there. Calculate there expenses and assume an idea of converting paper invoices into e-invoices.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com