How PM&C in Australia improved their administrative processes with PEPPOL

Back in November 2020, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) was mandated to have eInvoicing enabled by 1 July 2021. After selecting 6 service providers, Financial Systems Manager Trent Smith eventually decided to use Storecove as the department’s PEPPOL solution.

“A Peppol invoice is basically a data file instead of a flat document (like a PDF). This means the automation can be built to grab the invoice information and import it directly into the backend of our finance system, making the process a lot faster. This mitigates the manual data entry that an Accounts Payable Officer has to do, gives us more correct data, and frees up time from that AP officer to do more meaningful tasks instead of just sitting there all day doing data entry.

Another aspect that we liked with the Peppol network is that it could mitigate some of the risks around vendors being impersonated, as this is a method of delivery with eInvoicing, it is linked directly into the vendors finance system as well. 

Even though we knew we had to do something, it was about how quickly we could become enabled, future proofing, the option that we choose and utilizing the benefits and ensuring that we could get the maximum value out of this over time."

What is the next phase for your department? 

"We are currently receiving an XML file with the PDF email. With that XML file, we've had the ability to start building some automation and roll out auto-matching of an invoice to a contract claim in our test environment. We'll roll this out into our production environment once it's working. 

Storecove also offers a few other eInvoicing formats that we would like to test in the future as well, such as JSON API. There's quite a few formats that Storecove supports, which means that, if we change finance systems over time, we could contact Storecove and find out what other options are available. This all works with the automation into our finance system.

Once we complete our upgrade projects, we'd like to build a solution for sending e-invoices to our suppliers as well. At the moment we just wanted to focus on the receiving end of eInvoicing, run with that, and make sure it's all working properly. Then we'll start looking at the outbound invoices. We were also aware that Peppol includes more than just eInvoicing, meaning that we can start looking at other documents too, such as purchase orders and contract documentation."

Why did you choose Storecove?

“I went through the list of Peppol providers, and picked out six. Now all six of these Peppol providers gave us demonstrations on their offerings. Some providers use different integration methods, different pricing structures, different solutions. So while on paper these seemed fairly simple and similar, it wasn't until we saw the solution working that the extent of the different solutions became clearer.

After the contract was signed the build time was surprisingly quick. I received an email from Storecove within a couple of hours saying I was up and running. I was shocked. I logged in and received test invoices within 2 hours. Then we rolled it out with the other two shared service agencies and it was just as quick.  Like any implementation we had a few teething issues, but not too many. Storecove jumped on these straight away and fixed them overnight. So the next morning I came in it was up and running. Perfect.

The other aspect of our relationship with Storecove - which is really good – is that, when we decide to send other documents through PEPPOL, there will be no additional charges. It's all part of the setup and the subscription that we agreed on. It's really enlightening as to what a great company Storecove has been."

 "Immense praise on the overall experience in dealing with Storecove"

"I would just like to extend my thanks on behalf of the ATO e-Invoicing Team for Storecove’s assistance in adoption. We have just received an email from Prime Minister and Cabinet (PMC) notifying us that they are now e-Invoicing enabled through.

Not only that, but as part of their shared services arrangements this includes National Indigenous Australians Agency and National Drought and North Queensland Flood Response and Recovery Agency, bringing our total from six to nine enabled Commonwealth agencies.

 On top of that, PMC has heaped immense praise on the overall experience in dealing with Storecove. In short, implementing with Storecove has proven to be fast, easy and affordable."

- Perry Liolios, Director e-invoicing / Digital delivery, Australian Taxation Office (ATO)