BayWa Implements Comarch EDI to Meet the Upcoming B2G E-invoicing Obligation
In its agriculture, energy and construction segments, the internationally active BayWa AG Group has numerous business partners, the majority of whom are owned by the German government. In view of the obligation to exchange invoices electronically, which comes into force on 27 November 2020, BayWa has chosen the certified IT manufacturer Comarch as its service provider.
Comarch EDI enables BayWa to exchange invoices in a legally compliant manner with its mostly state-owned business partners, who are bound by the e-invoicing obligation. With Comarch EDI being a certified PEPPOL Access Point, direct electronic connection to the German e-billing platforms is made via PEPPOL. This includes conversion of the format of all invoices from existing IT systems to XRechnung and subjecting them to verification. Moreover, it provides a consistent protocol for communication with business partners.
With Comarch EDI, BayWa is well prepared for the future e-invoicing obligation. The solution guarantees a check for legal conformity and verification of all mandatory fields before each invoice is sent. Thanks to Comarch, we can connect to all our business partners and take all interfaces and formats into account. Automated dispatch of invoices ensures more efficient processes. Costs and manual work are reduced, and invoices are sent in seconds. Transparency and traceability of document flow are possible thanks to comprehensive tracking, says Tobias Fausch, CIO of BayWa AG.
A challenge connected with XRechnung is that the format offers very few free fields for selection. Sometimes these fields are not sufficient for mapping all industry and product-specific invoice data. Since BayWa offers a wide range of different products and services, XRechnung must be adapted accordingly. We therefore define product-dependent rules to accommodate all information in optional fields of XRechnung. Many companies face the challenge of designing their internal processes in such a way that the routing ID from each individual order is transferred to the respective invoice”, says Piotr Jagiełło, project manager at Comarch responsible for the joint project with BayWa.
We chose Comarch because the service provider convinced us with its comprehensive expertise, fast response times and professional support. Its global presence as an IT manufacturer also enables us to roll out the EDI solution internationally”, summarized Tobias Fausch.
In addition to the deployment in Germany, electronic invoicing with Comarch EDI is to be extended to other countries as part of an SAP migration; the next step is a roll-out in Italy.
More information: https://www.baywa.com/
Foto: ©Manicx
