Embracing Compliance: A Journey of Self-Reflection and Vision

Let’s face it—most of us are quicker to comment on what others should do than to examine our own circumstances. Why? Because it’s easier. Turning the lens inward requires self-reflection and a significant dose of courage. 

Personal and professional procrastination

How many of us scramble to prepare for our annual income tax declarations at the last minute? Searching for misplaced receipts and contracts, racking our brains for details from months ago—it’s a familiar story. Professionally, it’s often the same. How many of us delay submitting travel expenses? How often do we overlook ensuring that hotel invoices are billed to the company instead of our personal accounts, inadvertently creating headaches for our Accounts Payable colleagues?

This isn’t meant as a sweeping generalization, but let’s be honest (myself included)—we’ve all been guilty of leaving things to the eleventh hour. 

The evolution of e-invoicing compliance

The same holds true for e-invoicing compliance (nice segue, right?). Despite its beginnings over two decades ago, global adoption of e-invoicing has been sluggish. While many organizations and suppliers have made strides, achieving 100% real electronic invoices—not just PDFs or OCR-scanned documents—remains elusive.

For 25 years, I’ve been deeply devoted to the topic of digitizing the end-to-end process of procure-to-pay. I’ve often thought: if we have the internet and computers (not just for gaming purposes!), surely eliminating paper should be a breeze. 

The real challenge: vision and perspective 

Yet here we are, a quarter-century later, realizing that the problem was never technology. What’s been missing is vision—the willingness to confront outdated, decades-old business processes and resist the urge to maintain the status quo by merely layering on a coat of "digitization" over practices that are no longer state-of-the-art. 

Overcoming the fear of change

But where does this originate? Why does change feel so daunting? Is it fear of being criticized for not acting sooner? Or the reluctance to tackle long-standing inefficiencies? Instead of proactively preparing, we often wait for legislation to force action. 

Even then, we tend to address only the immediate requirement rather than embracing the bigger picture.

The path to efficient invoice processing

Here’s the hard truth: if your approach is to tackle mandates piecemeal—first the French e-invoicing mandate, then Poland, followed by Spain, Germany, and beyond—you risk wasting time, money, and sanity. 

A short-sighted solution to meet one requirement might solve today’s problem but won’t prepare you for the future. Instead, businesses need a comprehensive approach—one that consolidates and validates all financial data in a centralized platform, streamlines year-end processes, and fosters stronger supplier relationships. Such a solution enables you to improve, visualize, and trust the end-to-end audit trail of your transactions. 

Basware's comprehensive compliance solution

Basware is ahead of the curve. While others provide “compliance as a service” by offering a guidebook of requirements and leaving the heavy lifting to you, Basware takes it further.

At Basware, compliance is codified and integrated into our platform. It delivers end-to-end invoice compliance out of the box, addressing country mandates seamlessly—not as a feature, but as a standard.

Ready to learn more? 

Discover how Basware can help you simplify compliance and transform your invoice processes. Download the CFO Handbook for actionable insights, and don’t forget to register for our Compliance Without the Boring Bits webinar series to explore how compliance can drive efficiency without adding complexity.