Financial Center
Innovation

2021 Is the Year of eBill for Companies

Background 25 Mar 2021

eBill aspires to be the digital invoice for Switzerland. Having now been adopted by over two million private individuals, eBill is also expected to make ground in the corporate segment this year.

Recent months have shown how important it is, as companies, to be able to function digitally in distributed structures. An efficient debt collection system with reliable cash flows is very important especially in more economically challenging times.

This is precisely why SIX and the Swiss financial center will start to replace the current payment slips with the modern QR-bill and eBill solutions by 30 September 2022 at the latest. While the QR-bill is mainly meant to be a replacement for conventional payment slips, eBill represents the future of fully digitalized invoicing in Switzerland.

eBill – a Major Success Story

With over two million users, eBill has now reached more than half of all Swiss households and is indispensable to the payment transfer landscape and the range of services of many invoice issuers. Every month, companies send millions of eBill invoices, which their customers are most reliable in paying: over 95% of invoices are settled before their due date. In comparison with paper invoices or e-mail invoices, this signifies that they are 10% to 20% more likely to pay their invoices.

Companies as Invoice Issuers

Just under 4,000 companies already bank on eBill for their invoicing – and the trend is sharply upwards.
A wide range of SIX partners offer eBill in the corporate market, meaning that there is a suitable solution for sending eBill invoices for all companies – from SMEs to large corporations. eBill partners in particular will deliver a vast array of innovations in 2021, which will make eBill even more attractive as a means of invoicing.
For example, thanks to the look-up function, companies will be able to find their customers via e-mail address or UID (corporate identification number) and automatically convert them to eBill. Or they incorporate eBill in their sales and online check-out processes directly, in online sales channels or also via customer portals, for example. And switching is always child’s play for customers.

Companies as Invoice Recipients

While the first phase focused on ensuring eBill achieved widespread coverage of private invoice recipients, the focus is now increasingly switching towards companies. The aim here is to establish eBill fully as a future-oriented channel for receiving “simple” invoices. In this connection, “simple” means that the invoices include small amounts of data relating to order items.

Introduce eBill Combined With the QR-bill

To live up to the aspiration of eBill, the digital invoice for Switzerland needs to penetrate all relevant segments, including the corporate sector. The planned extensions towards integration within business software will simplify digitalization of their invoice receipt for companies.

2021 is the right year not just to switch to the QR-bill but also to introduce eBill at the same time. Incidentally, the QR-bill can be combined with eBill. Using the invoice recipient’s e-mail address on the QR-bill, it can be converted automatically into an eBill invoice, which is all the more reason to offer both eBill and the QR-bill in the future as part of the switch.

Switching to eBill

Digital Invoicing Using the Example of SBB

Approximately 200,000 public transport customers of the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) already use the eBill option to settle their travelcard invoices. The benefits at a glance.

Paper Invoice or eBill?

SBB sends out 4.4 million invoices to GA Travelcard and Half Fare Travelcard customers every year on behalf of the public transport sector. These travelcards have been renewed automatically since the SwissPass was introduced in 2015. Customers benefit continually from the services offered by their travelcards and from numerous SwissPass partner services. They can see their invoices and manage them in their customer account at swisspass.ch. 85% of the 3.2 million travelcard customers will still continue to receive their invoices by mail. However, approximately 6% already pay their invoices via eBill. The remaining 9% receive their invoices via e-mail.

The Benefits for SBB

Savings: SBB saves approximately 30 centimes per eBill invoice compared with a paper invoice. There are also fewer corrections and manual processes in Support since all the information needed for payment is already available thanks to eBill. The data also showthat customers pay their invoices more promptly with eBill; the company saves on having to send reminders.

Sustainability: eBill helps protect the environment. With over 4.4 million invoices consisting of three sheets on average and envelopes, the consumption of paper is massively reduced through e-billing. Invoices do not have to be sent by mail either.

The Benefits for Customers

Pay invoices quickly and conveniently: Travelcard invoices are sent direct to customers’ personal e-banking accounts and can be approved with only two clicks. This saves customers having to go to the post office or the tedious scanning of invoices and typing out long reference numbers.

Security: eBill protects customers from phishing and spam.

Sustainability: Thanks to digital invoice dispatch, consumption of paper is significantly reduced; transport by mail is unnecessary. Customers make a vital contribution to preserving natural resources and feel good that, thanks to eBill, they are doing their bit to preventing damage to the environment.

Subscribe to the Magazine clearit

This article is an extract from clearit, the Swiss quarterly professional journal for payments. Subscribe to the free magazine and don't miss an issue.

Subscribe to clearit