E-Invoicing in New Zealand

by | Mar 5, 2024 | E-invoicing

March 2024

In February 2024 Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing, Hon Andrew Bayly, announced the Government’s intention to repeal the Business Payments Practices Act 2023. After Australia implemented e-invoicing in 2020, it appears that payments are still taking a long delay, thus, the Government will be requiring government agencies to adopt faster payment times.

The Current State of E-invoicing in New Zealand

The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) is the New Zealand Peppol Authority in charge of supervising and also discussing with agencies to promote e-invoicing in New Zealand.

Currently New Zealand’s 32 Central Government agencies are required to pay 95% of invoices within 10 days and be able to receive electronic invoices from their suppliers.

In June 2021 Central Government agencies were set e-invoicing implementation with the following targets:

  • All Central Government agencies have to receive e-invoices by 31 March 2022.
  • 90% of business to Central Government invoices are e-invoices by July 2026.

With over 280 million business to business invoices exchanged in New Zealand annually, it is estimated that savings through electronic invoicing can reach $4.4 billion over 10 years.

Hon Andrew Bayly is also encouraging government organizations to send electronic invoices, putting forwards the benefits and savings it will produce. These proposals show that e-invoicing may become the default method to exchange invoices for Central Government and all crown entities.

How to Do E-invoicing in New Zealand

As mentioned above, New Zealand has chosen Peppol as a way of issuing e-invoices. All business must have a NZBN number (New Zealand Business Number), which is their unique identifier that is also used in the Peppol Network.

Companies can either use their already existing accounting system, they only have to check if their provider is listed as an official Peppol Access Point. Good news is SPS Commerce is already a trusted Peppol access point for Australia and New Zealand!

If the company generates only a few invoices per year, it can use a free portal to create its e-invoices.

Finally, invoices and electronic invoices must be archived for a period of 7 years.

Faustine Tournay
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