EIPP (e-invoicing) and StartUp World

Recently John Beech, Managing Director of Access Accounting wrote:

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In a previous article, I explained how the market can be segmented in to:

1. Supplier-centric: sending documents such as invoices electronically from Accounts Receivable (A/R) systems.
2. Purchaser/buyer-centric: receiving documents such as invoices electronically in to Accounts Payable (A/P) systems.
3. Enterprise-centric: sending and receiving documents such as invoices electronically from/into A/R and A/P systems.
4. Exchanges: Connects suppliers and buyers - many different configurations exists. Perhaps I will cover this under separate heading.

ebdex Document Exchange can be used in following configurations:

1. Web-to-Web: brings benefits to users.
2. Web-to-End: brings benefits to users with significant benefit to "End" user.
3. End-to-Web: brings benefits to users with significant benefit to "End" user.
4. End-to-End: provides the maximum benefit that can be expected to both "End" users.

"End" user means user’s system has been integrated with ebdex Document Exchange for seamless document exchange between user’s accounting, ERP or CRM system and ebdex Document Exchange. "End" user can be configured in three ways:

1. Supplier-centric: To send documents out electronically from accounting, ERP, SOP, CRM or any other system.
2. Purchaser/buyer-centric: To receive documents electronically in to accounting, ERP or any other system.
3. Enterprise-centric: To send and receive documents electronically.

In all eventualities, a central (single) transaction hub will be used in "hub-and-spoke" configuration. A spoke would represent a direct link with a user’s accounting, ERP or CRM system

"Web" user means use of on-line facilities. In this configuration, a user will log on to ebdex Document Exchange to:

1. Send document(s) to a registered trading partner. - documents can be prepared on-line using web form(s) or a document prepared externally can be uploaded
2. Receive documents from a registered trading partner - documents can be viewed, down loaded and printed if wished.

In "Web" user configuration, ebdex Document Exchange functions as a stand alone system without having user’s accounting/ERP/CRM or any other system integrated to ebdex Document Exchange. In almost all cases, this would be the entry point for users. Development of suitable interface drivers will allow a user to migrate from "Web" user to "End" user, thus increasing the level of automation. Further article will elaborate this further.

Tags: Exchanges, Supplier-centric, buyer-centric, Purchaser-centric, ebdex Document Exchange, Document Exchange

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Having introduced Tiyga on my blog few days ago, I am privileged to report that I have been invited to attend the 3rd User Group Event planned on 2nd August 06 by Tiyga! Katrina has achieved significant publicity since featuring on The Daily Telegraph’s Trailblazers event and featuring on Orange. 1 month free trial has been offered to all Orange subscribers. I also understand that other mobile operators are also interested in partnering with Katrina.

Tiyga is based on a simple concept. Yet the solution when correctly installed and used, gives unparallel visibility to how one spends his or her time. The solution is available on following smart phones (for Orange Subscribers):

My phone, O2 XDA Mini S has been uploaded with Tiyga for number of months. It had couple of glitches which prevented me from using Tiyga and Katrina has promised to send her key man to sort it out before the User Group Event! That’s what I call service!

I look forward to becoming a keen user of Tiyga in coming months.

Tags: Tiyga, Aventura, Daily Telegraph, XDA Mini S, Sony Ericsson, Orange SPV,

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I have been testing our first release today. It looks better and stable than ever before. We have been testing and debugging since April 06. The web-to-web facility with e-mail notifications will be offered free to companies who register during the build up to formal launch later this year. If you are interested in trying out or using it for real, e-mail your contact details to sales@ebdex.co.uk with your company details.

Nimeshe, Manoj, Hemanjalee, Suchira, Roshan, Seshan and Suren (plus those guys and gals who were in the initial two teams - we lost over the year): Thank you very much for your efforts. Now we need to work on the next release! No time to relax, I am afraid!

Tags: product release

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John Stokdyk, editor of Accounting Web rang me couple of days ago to enquire about ebdex. As a result, he has published an article about the EIPP market as well as ebdex. Extract of the article (the interesting bits about us) is captured below for your convenience:

Visit the purchase ledger department of almost any organisation and you are likely to witness working practices that still reflect their Victorian origins. Manoj Ranaweera is CEO of a web-based EIPP start-up called ebdex, which is due to go live in the next couple of weeks.

He first got interested in the subject as a project manager for a large engineering consultancy and dispaired at the wasted effort. "We recorded our work on Excel time and expenses sheets, which we printed out and sent to the accounts department. They retyped the data into Oracle and when an invoice needed to be generated, they copied the information from Oracle into Excel and posted or faxed the invoice to the client. When it went to the recipient organisation, it needed to be retyped, so the effort that went into it was triplicated."

The advantages and claimed savings are compelling, but as Paul Kelly noted, EIPP remains a minority interest, mainly for large multinational organisations with the buying power and technology infrastructure to maintain a proprietary in-house system. Having studied the market with some care in recent years, Ranaweera explains why Paul Kelly and other small companies have been frustrated in their attempts to adopt electronic invoicing in the past.

"There are a lot of solutions out there, but they’re pretty much geared for larger organisations. The biggest problem for small companies is that while they had these systems imposed on them by big suppliers such as Ford or supermarket chains, they couldn’t comply because they didn’t have the infrastructure or know-how. So the large companies didn’t get the benefits they expected. Because they were trading with their tier 1 and tier 2 suppliers, they were pretty close knit groups which excluded smaller players in the market."

In the early days, EDI usually meant leasing dedicated data lines and building virtual private networks. The technology was not that well developed, and expensive, Ranaweera explains. By the late 1990s the internet was making its presence felt. The first web-based e-invoicing site, ob10.com, was followed a few years later by Accountis. Like ebdex, these systems are designed as online invoice exchanges and include programming interfaces and XML-based translators to extract and feed invoice data between the users’ accounting systems.

In spite of the obvious benefits, the take-up of EIPP is still slow. But signs are emerging that electronic techniques are beginning to find their way into the finance departments of smaller companies. Accountis, for example, noted that SMEs struggle to cope with the transition and offers a managed paper/electronic service, where its staff will take paper invoices from client companies and input them into its system.

Technorati Tags : OB10, Accountis, ebdex, Accounting Web

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Dave Stephens just launched their opensource eProcurement Platform. It was accompanied by a new face lift to his website. Lots of hard work gone in to this project. Congratulations Dave! Video is great! I was not planning to add a Wiki. It is a great idea. I need to work on it (among many others)!

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My friend, Katrina Delargy few weeks ago launched Tiyga, a revolutionary time management tool that could be loaded on to your smart phone and/or computer or work off the web. With minimum effort, Tiyga records how you spend your time, in 15 minute slots and run analysis to help you manage your time more effectively. Its a great tool that we can all benefit from. Have a go and let me know what you think!

Katrina is also an alum of Manchester Business School (that’s where I met her first) and operates out of Daresbury Innovation Centre, where ebdex is based at.

She was also featured on today’s The Daily Telegraph - look for the supplement titled Trailblazers! What a way to get free publicity! She did complain that coffee at Ritz was bit too expensive! Well done, Katrina. Remember, I knew you before you became famous!

Tags: Tiyga, Aventura, Daily Telegraph

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Marcus Hughes of Bottomline Technologies writes for GTNews that:

launch of faster payments in the UK will have a major impact on the way businesses and consumers make payments in Sterling. According to Marcus, from November 2007, businesses and consumers will be able to make payments over the Internet or via telephone banking up to a limit of GBP10,000 that will reach the bank account of the beneficiary/payee within two hours.

Under Phase III of development of ebdex Document Exchange, we will offer number of on line payment solutions.

Tags: on-line payment, Bottomline Technologies, GT News

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Here I have collated some articles I have written about Document Exchange, EIPP and ebdex for easy reference.

1. Article 1 - What is e-invoicing or EIPP?
2. Article 2 - Problem with e-invoicing?
3. Article 3 - EIPP Market - Segmentation
4. Article 4 - What business are we in? Document Exchange or EIPP
5. Article 5 - Another introduction to ebdex Document Exchange

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Have a look at Coupa and then read Dave Stephens blog on e-procurement. He has a well experienced team - all ex-Oracle guys!  I am jealous Dave! I am doing the hard way and we will eventually get there - I meant building a superb team! Dave and I are speaking of linking both technologies sometime in the near future. We both have huge tasks of getting our first releases out! We both have missed deadlines to deal with. We also share some competitors. Here is what Dave recently said about Ariba:

In other news Ariba came in light on revenues… Again… But they say things are going really “well” transitioning the business to subscriptions. Of course, that was what they’ve been saying for the last 5 quarters also. I guess it depends on what the definition of “well” is. Sometimes it means on course, good, nicely, etc. But “well” can also mean ‘a deep pit you keep digging in the hope of finding water’… The stock is getting pounded after-hours, down 5.8%. On a more positive note, I really liked Ariba’s recent decision to ship a NetWeaver adapter for their supplier network service to tie into SAP.

We are yet to develop any interfaces with SAP. Our development programme ensures continuous development of interface drivers. It seems such a decision at Ariba is a big deal. In our case, this will become routine part of the business. The more interface drivers we have, the more systems we can exchange documents with. Simple logic - makes sense, don’t you think so!

Tags: Coupa, eProcurement

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Just had a sneak preview of Vyew 2.0. This was first reviewed by me in May 06. There are more functions than before. You can upload a Microsoft Power Point slide pack. However, slide pack is automatically converted to individual slides, which results in lost of any animation. I do not like this. In addition, it does not allow a file stored in one computer to be edited by your team located elsewhere. This feature is provided by Yuuguu.  I still believe you need number of different tools to provide a truly collaborative environment for remote workers. Mandatory tools include GoToMeeting and/or Webex. Both of these are expensive. 

About Vyew 2.0 (taken from their website):

Vyew is a browser-based conferencing and always-on collaboration platform that provides instant visual communication without the need for client downloads or installations. Currently you can use Vyew for shared viewing of presentations, files, photos and one’s desktop. Included are tools for white boarding, annotating, text chatting, and phone conferencing. With the release of Vyew 2.0, users have unprecedented control and flexibility over their Web conferencing and collaboration sessions. Users can now create multiple ‘always-on’ collaboration sessions, called VyewBooks, and save them for archival or re-open later. Multiple VyewBooks allow for Users to keep a history of all past sessions or stage new material for future sessions. VyewBooks can be organized by project, customer, or interest.

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Have you ever wondered if there is a way to jointly edit a document stored on one of your team member’s computer thousands miles away from you? My friends Philip and Anish just brought such a facility to the market. I trialled it today with my development team in Sri Lanka with Skype providing the voice capability. Unfortunately the bandwidth was an issue when dealing with Sri Lanka, but Philip informed me this is not the case in here. We may use this tool for sales and supports. Yuuguu has a clear road map of bringing additional functionality over the next few months. Bit about their team:

Anish Kapoor: Anish Kapoor was co-founder, Finance Director and latterly Corporate Development Director of TeleCity Ltd, a venture capital backed technology start-up founded in 1998. He is currently Non Executive CFO for Jacamar Ltd a seed funded online gaming provider, Non Executive Director on Xware Ltd a development capital funded mobile gaming developer. In addition he has held various part time executive roles at EXML Systems Ltd a development capital funded mobile software applications developer.

Philip Hemsted: Philip has a mix of entrepreneurial and corporate experience in the telecommunications; software; engineering and steel industries. He was previously European Marketing Director at Sycamore Networks and VP of Marketing at ilotron and has held senior management positions at Nortel Networks and Marconi.

Yuuguu has already set-up a forum (we need to do similar) to capture user experience. I understand single user license may be offered free of charge.

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Today, our plan was to upload the first release of ebdex Document Exchange to UK servers. Alas! this was not meant to be. A fuel crisis in Sri Lanka meant that my team had to go home earlier than usual. Hope they all manage to get home safely. How do you plan for such? We had fuel shortages, terrorist attacks, heavy storms in UK from time to time. Very disruptive to business, indeed!

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I am finally back in UK (arrived on 20th), having spent over 2 weeks with my development team in Sri Lanka. We have a new team in place and they are having to cope with some tough targets over the next few weeks. I also came back with a "pre-release" which needs to be loaded up and re-tested. Then we should be able to connect up our initial clients. The pre-release will allow invoices to be exchanged. Its a web-to-web solution and has an Inbox and a Outbox. Will reveal further next week.

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Sri Lanka was a British Colony for over 200 years before gaining independence in 1945. As such, institutions large and small followed and continue to follow British standards. But adaptation of these standards in Sri Lanka are continually been influenced by American standards, as more and more people are trained in US universities than in British universities.

As an example, I was educated at Royal College in Colombo, the most prominent and the largest school in Sri Lanka with a history of over 150 years. After completing my GCSE Advance Level examinations in 1987, I moved to UK to undertake an undergraduate degree at University of Brighton in 1988. At Royal College, I was one of the 40 students in my class. We had 14 classes in the same grade/form, i.e. 560 students undertook the same exam at the same time. As far as I know, I was the only one to come to UK to further my education straight after receiving the results (some migrated much later). However, at least 3 from the same class of 40 went to US for further education.

This trend continues to date, i.e. more and more students join American universities than British. Now, there are many affiliations of foreign universities in Sri Lanka, these being British, American and others. It has become a lucrative industry for western universities. Sri Lankans have a thirst for knowledge which comes from undertaking further studies and fighting for the few university places in Sri Lanka. It is much easier for Sri Lankans to travel (still need visas) now than it used to be.

This has created a dynamic economy with ever increasing trading relationships with foreign banks and companies. Sri Lankans who run companies abroad do not abandon their country of birth. They somehow tries to give something back. Good example (other than ebdex) is Virtusa, which has a large development centre in Sri Lanka. Virtusa is run by Kris Canekeratne, who started the company with his wife, both Sri Lankans, and now one of the biggest employers of IT staff in Sri Lanka.  

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