(03/09/09) Best Western implements e-invoicing for its intra-group invoices
Electronic invoicing of intra-group invoices:
Best Western changes to paperless invoices for its 270 members with Accelya
9 March 2009: Best Western, the leading worldwide chain of independent hotels, chose Accelya – a major player in e-invoicing and specialist in paperless flows for over 30 years – to implement a process for the tax and VAT compliant electronic invoicing of the invoices it sends to its 270 member hotels in France and abroad.
The objectives have been achieved: paper invoices have been completely eliminated between the head office and members and the means of communication within the network have been improved.
Over the past few months Best Western France has completely dematerialized all its invoices between its reservation headquarters and its 270 members. “One of our objectives consisted in eliminating the issuing of paper invoices between head office and our members in order to reduce the administrative costs associated with the invoicing process (printing, folding, sending, physical archiving, etc.) while still complying with the legislative and fiscal framework, with the support of the teams at Accelya in the implementation of this process.” explains Bruno Rossolin, Finance Director of Best Western, who originated the project. This posed a complex problem as five different types of invoice are issued (for example membership dues, reservations in France and abroad, miscellaneous invoices, etc.), and some of them have vouchers attached. They also have to be sent to members on different dates.
The challenge has paid off: paper invoices are no longer sent; the different invoices are now sent electronically, while complying with Tax Administrations requirements, are now made available at specific intervals on a dedicated portal for Best Western within the Clear' Invoice application.
Members receive an email notifying them that a new invoice has been sent, and they can then download this on their portal. This service is transparent and totally free of charge for the member.
For Bruno Rossolin, “The Clear' Invoice application from Accelya has gone beyond the functions initially intended and become a powerful communication tool for members: it has also been personalized in accordance with Best Western’s business line requirements and its own needs.”
Additional information on tariffs and internal accounting procedures, which used to be provided in a letter sent with the invoice, is now also accessible to members on the portal.
An exemplary operation, as in its second stage the project has now been extended to Best Western members in Morocco and New Caledonia, still providing tax-compliant e-invoicing and archiving with probative value, but this time in the form of PDF files which are signed electronically.
About Accelya
Accelya has specialised in handling sensitive data and paperless flows for more than 30 years, employs 700 people throughout the world, and is a major player in electronic invoicing.
Accelya offers Clear' Invoice, an externalized full e-invoicing service capable of handling all supplier, client or intra-group invoices. The service can adapt to the formats required by the various parties (free or structured format), and enables different types of dematerialization to be combined and paper invoices to be managed in the context of overall projects.
In order to optimise company processes and increase productivity, Clear' Invoice includes workflow, reconciliation and dispute management modules, as well as archiving with probative value and applications with online access to enable information to be accessed easily.
Accelya helps companies to roll out invoice dematerialization quickly to all their commercial partners, and guarantees that the Clear' Invoice service complies with legal and fiscal requirements at an international level.
For more information: clear-invoice@accelya.com
About Best Western
Best Western is an international group which was founded in 1946 and comprises 4,200 independent hotels in more than 80 countries, including 1,300 in Europe and 270 in France.
Best Western is the leading world hotel chain today.
Best Western France is a cooperative in line with the philosophy of Best Western International: the chain exists only through the common will of its member shareholders and these are the sole beneficiaries of the activities it develops.
Further information is available on: www.bestwestern.com
