Our company are going to start sending electronic invoices for self billed suppliers. Is there a requirement for these invoices to be printed out and put in supplier files to create an audit trail, or would the external auditors be satisfied just auditing the system on which the invoices were created on?
If the idea of using electronic invoicing is to reduce paperwork then it would seem counter productive to then print out copy invoices?
Does anyone else use this method of invoicing and how do you organise the invoices for audit review?
Electronic copies of invoices are acceptable for Auditors and HMRC. You must be able to reproduce a copy of the invoice if required, and your system must have security to ensure that the copy invoice is the same as the original.
If your system is not sufficiently secure, a decent document management system will store PDF copies of invoices, or scanned images. Document retrieval is quicker, and it saves on office space.
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