In Mexico, many organizations implemented non-integrated solutions provided by local signature providers. Now after the first 3 months, the problems we were alluding to are starting to show up. In my previous blog, I wrote about the complexity of Addenda which continue to take on new forms of complexity. Today, I want to go back to a statement I made almost 9 months ago – A PAC is not an enterprise e-invoicing solution, instead it is a signature provider on behalf of the government. And if you just partnered with a single PAC, you just created a single point of failure.
Lesson learned – Are you experiencing the same problems?
- Shipping Affected – In a number of conversations, we have spoken with customers who have had to hold trucks at the warehouse because their PAC was down, and they couldn’t get the proper documentation. The result – these companies are paying additional fees with their logistics providers. PACs are forced by law to offer free signing for very small companies via a portal. So the PACs are forced to deal with 1000s and 1000s of unsofisticated customers who generate no revenue but huge support issues. This impacts their ability to provide acceptable and responsive support to their enterprise customers. Look for a multi-PAC strategy.
- Loss of Business – It is common to hear complaints, but now we are hearing about customer frustration and loss of business.
- Fines – Yes, they are real. Six figure penalties are currently being imposed on organizations – why – they did not take the archiving and validation seriously on the inbound process side. One company is paying almost $90,000 dollars in fines because they were audited, and they could not provide the proper documentation to substantiate their VAT deductions. Another organization stated – we had the XML, but the stamp was not within the 72 hour rule of generation and the government did not recognize the invoice as valid. Therefore, they would not allow the VAT deductions. In a third case, the company had the XML and used it for deduction purposes, but the supplier had filed a cancellation with the SAT – and the XML updates were not applied to the buyers systems. Take Away – you need to automate the XML processing through your SAP system, not just collect it and store it.
- Multiple Vendors – Some PACs won’t even do the Addenda, they have resigned themselves to what they are – a pure signing provider. I spoke with a number of companies that have one local provider for signing (Timbre), another for Addenda, and a 3rd for Nomina Electronica (Payroll Receipt signatures).
- Process Breaks – Changes in the SAP ERP system, only cause issues in the local server. Changes in the local server, then cause issues with the SAP ERP system. It is a constant circle of finger pointing and time wasted. And well these argument are taking place, your organization is not able to process invoices.
There are enterprise solutions in the marketplace that address these issues, so why wait until the fines or business interruptions hit you.
