Tasos Christidis

In an older post ( http://goo.gl/jXGmOi ) I discussed how web-based or cloud Financial ERP can help you unlock new possibilities for your Business Processes. The basic argument there was that an open system (like a cloud-based system is, by definition) could involve your customers in a specific business process (like sending a Sales Order, posting a comment that needs subsequent action from within your CRM etc.). The reaction I got from a number of readers was that new best practices could be devised and applied in a very important, so to speak, business process which is of everybody’s interest, big or small: that of invoicing the end-customer. We shouldn’t forget that many small and medium enterprises are focusing their I.T. operations on Accounts Receivable, inside which the invoicing cycle represents a significant part. Therefore, in this post I’d like to focus on this specific issue: how can your invoicing change when you’re using a web-based Financial ERP . 

The Software as a Service concept (SaaS) has been around for quite some time now. Therefore, we have gathered enough “historical” data to help us discuss short-term future trends. It is possible that some of them are not finally confirmed, since the business is so rapidly changing, but seeing buyers habits and trends, technology advancement and large players strategy, we can support our views with some degree of certainty. SaaS will gain momentum against Infrastructure as a Service or Platform as a Service: A large percentage of buyers of “aaS” are SMB’s which do not wish, afford or intend to commence internal development cycles. Therefore, they are – by definition – out of the IaaS/PaaS targeting. Of course, there are the big players which understand that buying “just” SaaS is not enough because of their complexity, special requirements, customization needs etc. and they turn to IaaS and PaaS. This market segment is not to be ignored. We just think that even if we see IaaS...