Adoption of Electronic Invoicing in SMEs

Abstract: There has been an increasing interest in the area of electronic invoicing
and more and more organisations send their invoices electronically. Today it
is mostly large organisations and the public sector that utilise e-
invoicing. Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) have not adopted e-
invoicing to the same extent, even though new, simpler and more affordable
techniques for e-invoicing have been introduced. The purpose of this study
was to gain a better understanding of the adoption of electronic invoicing
in SMEs, by describing the factors that affect the adoption of electronic
invoicing in SMEs and how adoption of electronic invoicing can be
facilitated. In order to provide understanding of the subject, case studies
of three SMEs were made. The SMEs studied were: NKV, J. Petterssons Chark
and BD Fisk.

The findings of this thesis indicate that there are several factors that
affect adoption of e-invoicing in SMEs. Pressure from customers is
considered to be an important factor for e-invoicing adoption in SMEs.
Furthermore, the SMEs perceive that adoption of e-invoicing can be
beneficial, and lead to increased internal efficiency as well as impact on
business processes and relationships. The innovativeness of the
owner/manager was also found to influence adoption of e-invoicing. The
results from this study also indicate that technologically, the SMEs are
ready for an adoption of e-invoicing and in general the SMEs in the study
also have enough financial resources to adopt e-invoicing. However,
technological and financial assistance and coercive methods are considered
to facilitate adoption of e-invoicing in SMEs.