What Is E-Invoicing In Australia?

Over 1.2 billion Business‑to‑Business (B2B) and Business‑to‑Government (B2G) invoices are exchanged annually in Australia. Most are still delivered as paper invoices or emailed PDFs, both of which incur significant manual processing costs. According to the ATO:

• The average cost to process a paper invoice is AUD 30.87
• The average cost to process a PDF invoice is AUD 27.67

These costs stem mainly from manually entering and validating invoice data within internal systems.

e invoicing Australia refers to the fully automated exchange of invoice data in structured digital form, integrating a supplier’s accounts payable system with a customer’s accounts receivable system. That means no manual keying-in of invoice details, with built-in invoice validation, acknowledgments, and standard business-rule checks

By adopting true e invoicing in Australia, businesses can reduce processing costs to as low as AUD 9.18 per invoice. The NSW Government estimated savings of AUD 71 million from just 4.2 million invoices in 2019 by moving to e invoicing

📩 Is emailing PDF invoices considered e invoicing Australia?

No. While sending a PDF invoice via email is more efficient than mailing paper, it does not qualify as system‑to‑system e invoicing. A PDF simply conveys a visual image of the invoice—underlying data still requires manual entry or OCR interpretation, often at sub‑optimal accuracy rates (~80%), leaving room for errors and costing businesses time and money.

Why shift from PDF invoicing to Peppol e invoicing Australia?

PDF invoicing comes with inherent limitations:

• Semi‑automated data capture (OCR still requires manual validation)
• Elevated fraud risk, as PDFs can be intercepted and manipulated via email
• Lower data accuracy, leading to errors and rework
• High processing costs, up to AUD 27 or more per invoice

peppol e-invoicing

In contrast, Peppol e invoicing in Australia offers:

• End‑to‑end automation from supplier to buyer systems
• Pre‑send validation blocks incomplete or incorrect invoices
• Encrypted, secure point‑to‑point transmission via Peppol Access Points
• Network‑wide interoperability: connect once and transact with any other Peppol‑enabled partner, large or small
• These benefits translate to stronger fraud protection, lower operational cost, and improved transaction reliability.

how can we get started with peppol e-invoicing?

Enabling Peppol e-invoicing for your organisation should be simple, value driven and cost effective. We offer a range of different solutions to get your business ready for Peppol e-invoicing. If you’re considering Peppol e-invoicing, why not speak with our experts today?