Strengthening compliance with Axway
Founded in 1969 and headquartered in Waregem, Belgium, TVH delivers products and services to keep industrial equipment such as forklifts, industrial vehicles, construction, and agricultural machinery running smoothly. A truly global business, TVH operates from 81 locations all over the world. With more than 88,000 active customers across 182 countries, the company processes around 20,000 customer orders every day.
Xavier Van Hoorebeke, Product Owner Finance at TVH, elaborates: “Our mission is to provide parts and services that keep our customers going and growing. In recent years, we’ve grown significantly by attracting B2B customers in global markets, particularly via our popular e-commerce channel.”
Streamlining a fast-growing business
With large sales volumes and a diverse international customer base, operational efficiency and regulatory compliance are key focus areas for TVH. In the past, the company relied heavily on manual, paper-based processes for accounts payable and receivable. As its business grew, the company realized the old approach was no longer sustainable.
“As we grew internationally and won new customers, our legacy processes were putting significant strain on our accounting teams,” explains Van Hoorebeke. “We wanted a way to scale out our invoice processing capabilities without increasing our headcount.”
Taking the first step towards e-invoicing
TVH decided to take the first step towards dematerialization, replacing its paperbased invoicing and invoice archiving processes with a secure digital repository. Next, the company moved from manual invoicing to automated e-invoicing workflows, integrating its ERP and e-commerce systems with Axway eInvoicing, part of the Axway B2B Integration platform, to send electronically signed PDF invoices to its customers.
“Our first-ever engagement with AdValvas, which today is part of Axway, was in 2009. It was a key milestone to start our e-invoicing transformation,” states Van Hoorebeke. “Moving from paper-based invoices to signed PDFs significantly increased our operational efficiency. Later on, as countries across Europe and around the world started to implement B2G (Business-to-Government) e-invoicing regulations and continuous transaction controls (CTC) by imposing
B2B e-invoicing mandates, we knew we needed to evolve our approach to satisfy the new requirements.”
Building on a proven partnership
Governments are fighting VAT gaps and see continuous transaction control as a very effective answer to fighting fraud. Van Hoorebeke adds: “Moving to 100 percent digital invoicing also offers significant advantages for TVH, such as less manual work for our accounting teams and reduced exposure to regulatory risk. Thanks to digital invoicing, we can say that invoicing mandates don’t obstruct automation but rather help make our processes more efficient.”
TVH decided to build on its partnership with Axway to meet incoming CTC requirements. Axway eInvoicing empowered the company to manage invoicing processes in the cloud according to the local standards of each country in which it operates.
One solution, many standards
With Axway eInvoicing, TVH can support regulatory requirements for e-invoicing across its global business. “The key advantage of the Axway eInvoicing is that we have a single, easy-to-manage channel for e-invoices,” says Van Hoorebeke. “Because Axway addresses the e-invoicing requirements around the world directly, we achieve peace of mind through a standardized, efficient, and proven approach to onboarding countries where we operate.”
Reducing cost and complexity
In European Union countries, PEPPOL has now become the predominant network for invoicing. Van Hoorebeke explains: “PEPPOL is a common standard in Europe and is also adopted by other regions, including Asia-Pacific. In the USA, the same standard is now available with the Digital Business Networks Alliance (DBNA). However, many countries such as Italy, Romania, and Poland require bespoke CTC platforms. Using Axway eInvoicing, we avoid the complexity of building point solutions for country-specific requirements. Instead, Axway transforms our invoicing data into the required format, minimizing cost and risk for our business.”
Focusing on business growth
Through its partnership with Axway, TVH has gained the capabilities to maintain regulatory compliance, drive lean operations, and pursue global business growth.
“Over the last 15 years, invoicing has become infinitely more complex,” concludes Van Hoorebeke. “Gone are the days when we could simply print, send, and archive invoices on paper. Now, doing business internationally requires us to address a wide range of continually changing e-invoicing standards. Thanks to our partnership with Axway, we don’t need to worry about compliance risks. Axway eInvoicing handles the complexity for us.”
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