--- title: 'Bridging the GAAP Podcast Series: Keeping up with compliance and e-invoicing' url: https://www.medius.com/videos/finance-insights/bridging-the-gaap-podcast-series-keeping-up-with-compliance-and-e-invoicing/ updated: 2026-10-07T15:22:50Z --- # Bridging the GAAP Podcast Series: Keeping up with compliance and e-invoicing In this episode of Bridging the GAAP, “Keeping up with Compliance and e-Invoicing,” Xavier Olivera, Procure-to-Pay Analyst and Advisor at Spend Matters, talks to Brad Colie, Head of Sales at Pagero and Rich Revill, Vice President of Global Presales at Medius, about how e-invoicing mandates in different countries, what that means for governments and organizations operating across borders and how to stay compliant. ### Transcript * * * Speaker 1 Hello, and welcome to Medius' new podcast series, Bridging the GAAP. Together with Spend Matters, we've put together a podcast series exploring a wide range of topics from the evolution of technology and finance, to tax compliance to sourcing strategies to fraud risk and mitigation. In today's episode, Keeping up with compliance and e-invoicing, Xavier Olivera, Procure-to-Pay Analyst and Advisor at Spend Matters talks to Brad Colie, Head of Sales at Pagero and Rich Revill, Vice President of Global Presales at Medius, about how e-invoicing mandates in different countries, what that means for governments and organizations operating across borders and how to stay compliant. Speaker 2 Hi, Brad. Hi, Rich. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk with you about this very important topic today, electronic invoicing compliance for different countries. Let me start by introducing myself. I'm Xavier Olivera. I have been related to IT and procurement transformation for more than twenty, twenty five years, mainly in consulting companies and the last few years as a Procure-to-Pay Analyst at Spend Matters. Brad, if you could introduce yourself, please. Speaker 3 Sure, Xavier. Thank you very much. My name is Brad Colie. I am Director of Sales for Pagero in North America. I have been in the, we'll call it the e-invoicing space and compliance space for the better part of eight, nine, even ten years. And just really excited to be a part of this today and joining you and Rich for the discussion. Speaker 2 Thanks, Brad. Rich, your turn. Speaker 4 Yeah. Hi, Xavier and Brad. Great to be here. So, yeah, my name is Rich Revill, and I lead the global presales team here at Medius. And we work closely with Brad and the team at Pagero to drive really compelling end-to-end solutions for our customers operating globally that need both regional e-invoicing compliance along with true AP automation and payments automation as part of our broader spend management suite. So great to be here in this conversation today. Speaker 2 Thank you. Thank you both. How about we start with a brief introduction and definition of what is electronic invoicing compliance with general context to the audience? Speaker 3 Xavier, I think that's a great place to start. Right. And Pagero has been in the business of providing e invoicing solutions even in this compliance space for the better part of ten years. And it's incredibly important that as anyone thinks about how to solve e invoicing compliance and tax compliance, that they understand what is really happening in any given market or country. Because as the mandates for compliance rolls out in different parts of the world or even in different countries, there are different models for invoicing that have been introduced. And in fact, within the marketplace, we're seeing even some broader terminology of continuous transaction controls sort of govern the overall model that's available and what different countries are doing, because e invoicing can mean different things to different people. So when we think about topics and definitions, one of the biggest things that I see first is the difference between e invoicing itself as well as reporting, right? Tax reporting. And so I think what we're talking about today is more on the transactional side, the operational day to day, sending an invoice, for example, and on the AP side, of course, receiving the invoice and what that looks like. So when we think about the different models under the continuous transaction controls umbrella, Pagero has really identified four different models. One is interoperability in which a service provider is used for access points and access into that infrastructure. There's really no government control over that. It's really more of a body that has governance over the infrastructure and the way that invoices are sent and received. And it's the service providers that really own the technology and the ability to send and receive in the way that is governed through that infrastructure. And so when we talk about invoice compliance, yes, interoperability comes into play. But I think most people start to think about clearance models, and that's where the government inserts themselves in the middle of the process. One of the things that I've seen is in certain markets like Italy, the sender of the invoice actually sends the invoice directly to the government. And the reason that's important on the AP side is because that means that the AP team has to figure out how to also access the government, almost like a PO box, right, to pick up that invoice where you need a digital key, if you will. And being able to receive that invoice directly from the government also means that that invoice is coming in the format that the government has dictated. So there needs to be a conversion of the data in order for it to enter into your business process, you know, like the Medius platform for the ultimate processing workflow, approvals, validations and everything else. The other model is really the clearance where a supplier will send the invoice to the government and get approval, get a code. But the distribution is the responsibility of the supplier, right? So differentiating itself from the centralized invoicing model, which is the Italian model I just stated, there is the clearance model in which the supplier is actually sending the invoice to you, the buyer. And that can come in a number of formats, right? That can come via email and other methodologies. So the buyer has to be prepared for understanding how is the supplier going to send it or maybe even dictate to the supplier how they want that compliant or fiscally valid documents sent as well as the PDF. And so those are two main models that really need to be considered from an AP perspective on how to ingest the data that is coming in in a compliance market. And the final one, the fourth model, as I mentioned, is really a real time reporting. And that's more or less the responsibility of the supplier. However, I think we're going to talk a little bit later about the emergence of cross border invoicing, which we've seen in Italy, where actually it becomes a bit of a reverse flow. Once an AP invoice is received from, say, foreign a supplier and is processed, a report or effectively a subset of data on that invoice needs to be collected and converted into a format that the government then needs to receive from effectively the AP team. So, I know that was a bit lengthy, but hopefully that made sense to the audience or Xavier, if you have any questions or Rich, if you have anything to add to kind of those definitions and key models. Speaker 2 That is a great introduction to the topic. And thank you for explaining this really well. You just mentioned the complexity of this too, because it seems that it's not an easy task to do. So continuing with this conversation, we know that let's say five years ago, not too many countries were doing this type of mandate of electronic invoicing, right? But now more and more countries are doing it, are joining this initiative. What is happening here? What is the benefit of doing this for countries and for organizations? What is causing this change towards this electronic invoicing? Do you have any inputs there? Speaker 3 Yeah, I do actually. And I've been at this a long time and I know you have been as well, Xavier. So hopefully you share kind of my thoughts around this. It's a great question, right? Because you need to factor in not only what has happened historically and to date, but, you know, when you think about how to find a solution even into the future, is this a growing trend or is this dying trend or what's happening? The reality is that, as you say, many years ago, when there was only a handful of countries doing this, really the inception of this was predicated upon the fact that a country or a government tax authorities really were trying to close the tax loopholes. They were not receiving the tax revenue that that was due to them. And therefore, there was a decision to effectively collect all the data on invoices and really put the onus on the organizations operating within their borders to report what the government effectively already would know at that point. Right. Because they've collected all of the invoices. They know all of the VAT or tax that would be due. And so therefore, the organization that is operational within that country has little or no excuse to really avoid that tax payment. And so as governments started to see that, what you saw was a domino effect, especially for the countries that have the highest VAT or tax gaps. Another thing that has happened is that there's a clear path to data collection. And as governments recognize that they can collect this data electronically by receiving these invoices from, say, suppliers and approving those and collecting that information, then they have that data on hand to know what is happening within their borders again. So I think because of that, we're seeing definitive growth in e invoice mandates. As you say, many years ago, it really was, I think, isolated to Latin America as far as the clearance model, if you will. However, with the introduction of Italy and India, Egypt, announcements from Poland and Japan and Australia and others, we are seeing an explosion within this marketplace of e invoicing requirements and mandates. Speaker 2 Yeah, that's something that is not today's topic. Automation is a critical topic here too, that maybe in another time we could talk about it, but let's continue with this. What are the implications if I'm a company that is operating across borders? What are the implications of these mandates? Or more important, what are the challenges that they could face or the risk if they don't comply with this? Because this doesn't seem that simple task. This seems to have a lot of intelligence behind it. Speaker 3 Yeah, absolutely. And what I've seen is that, as I mentioned kind of earlier, taking the different models that are out there, one of the biggest things that a company has to consider is how to build a solution that can account for all of the different models that are out there, all of the different formats that the data is coming back into their system, speaking strictly towards the AP side of things. Right. And so the consideration of that so that you can minimize the effort on the IT side as well as within the AP process so that can gather the information and the data off of that AP invoice and ensure that you can standardize on that so that it can effectively get into your process the same way no matter which market that you're in. So one of the big things from an operational standpoint is how to collect that information and standardize the entry of that information or ingestion of that information into your system. You know, you mentioned what are the implications. It's important to understand that in some markets there are fines and there are certain things that are in place by the government that if you don't comply, then you could be subject to a fine or even a shutdown of your business. A lot of times that's on the supplier side. However, again, we are seeing the emergence in need from an AP perspective. And then following with the AP trend in a couple of these countries like the clearance markets, right, where an invoice has been cleared by the government, by the supplier and then sent to the buyer, there is a need for the buyer to really validate is that invoice, is it correct and is it registered with the government? Is this a truly a valid invoice? Because as a buyer you don't want to be paying an invoice and effectively registering to the government a tax position that wasn't originally registered. And so therefore there is a need to look up the information that is on that invoice. So there is unique identifier codes that a supplier will put onto that invoice. And so when receiving and prior to processing, oftentimes you want to make sure is this a valid supplier that's registered with the government? Is this a valid invoice that has been registered with the government? And therefore you can ensure that you're making payment on a valid invoice and not a fraudulent one within those markets. I know I answered that in a couple of different ways. So hopefully that made sense. And as you say, you know, with the automation in mind, thinking downstream, collection of that information and standardizing it is what's going to support automation because really difficult to automate data that's coming in in a number of different ways. So being able to understand what are the different formats, bring that data in in a standardized way allows for an automation strategy that a lot of companies are seeking. Speaker 2 Yeah, that's a great explanation for this topic. It's not something that a company may be able to do it by itself sometimes, It's required a lot of effort there and maybe a partnership like you guys, Pagero, right? Let's think about for the audience to visualize a real example of what this means in terms of effort. You just mentioned the type of efforts and the challenges, but could you give us a real example of what is the process of country and a specific country? I don't know, you mentioned Italy, but you could mention another one. So we have a more visual picture of this. Speaker 3 Yeah. And as you've even alluded to several times, it gets quite complex. So let me try and simplify it down. And as you say, give the audience a bit of a visual. So in Italy, for example, when an invoice is created by the supplier, there's specific data that the government requires. So that supplier will create the invoice and convert it into a format that the Italian government wants to see. In this case, it's a Pitura PA. The supplier will then send that invoice directly to the government. And really all that they're looking for as a supplier is an acceptance or rejection. And once the invoice has been accepted by the government, it really is out of their hands. As I mentioned in that centralized invoicing model, there is no distribution function from the supplier. So once that is registered with the government, it sits on their server. The best visual I have ever been told and I've shamelessly stole is it's like a PO box, right? So when the buyer pings the government platform, then they will see that that invoice has been registered and is available for pickup. That will then be retrieved. And that, as you say, is something that you really need a service provider for, especially given volumes and various other things that occur. So that's something that Pagero does. So let's say in this particular example, Pagero is your provider and we pick up that invoice in the Pitura PA format. We will then do the conversion and drive that data. And hopefully in this case, you're also utilizing Medius. So we will take that, drive it into the Medius' platform for consumption processing, validations and approvals. So that's just a very simple overview of the path or process flow of an invoice from supplier to buyer. So by picking that up directly from the government, you know it's a valid invoice. By comparison, there are clearance markets and this can be viewed as a Mexico or an India in which the supplier has registered the invoice with the government, received the clearance codes, QR codes, the dates of approval and everything else. And in this case, is all happy path, full reserve, you know, the errors and rejections for another call. But let's assume happy path here. The invoice is accepted by the government. These codes are provided and then the supplier distributes that invoice to the buyer. Let's say again, for sake of example, this is by email. And so the fiscally valid document in Mexico, it's a CFDI, is accompanied by a human readable PDF. And those two documents are then brought in by the buyer. And the next step, because you are receiving as an AP team, the invoice from your supplier, not via the government, but with hopefully unique identifier codes or QR codes, there is a validation step. And so you need to consider how are you going to do that. Again. You know, with the help of a provider like Pagero, you can have access to the governmental server to balance that code against their server to ensure that it is a valid document and that it is a valid supplier. And then therefore you can then process that information. Similar to Italy, though, at that step, you probably want to do a conversion. CFDI is a format, if you will. And so you want to be able to convert that. There are some that actually take the PDF and convert that into data elements that can then be processed and sent through, say, again, by way of example, the Medius platform for processing approvals and validations. So hopefully that wasn't too lengthy of an explanation, but a couple of real world examples and hopefully some visuals on how will work. Speaker 2 That's great, Brad. And this take us to the next question that is, as you just mentioned a couple of times, this is a complex process, but not just for the process per se, but also to maintain all the intelligence and update all the requirements that each country needs in order to be in compliance from an electronic invoice perspective. So, I understand that you Pagero and Medius has a partnership here and both provide this compliance. Could you elaborate a little bit of how you help organizations in order to be in compliance with this electronic invoicing? Speaker 3 Oh, Xavier, thank you so much. Yeah, that's great. And Rich, if you don't mind, I'll take a stab at this and then turn it over to you because as Xavier alluded to, there's a couple of steps in this process, right? So Pagero really satisfies the connectivity to the government platforms, the authorities for that that need to pick up the invoice, do the conversion. And it is quite complex because we operate in over 70 markets and it can vary as far as the invoice format and the need for receiving the data in a different way across all of those markets. So Pagero is operational and in over 70 or actually I think it's now 75 plus markets. And so what we want to do is we want to bring in that data so that the organizations that hopefully are listening in don't have to figure that out. They don't have to know how do I connect to the government? What is the format? We will do all that for them. We will do the conversion, standardize the data and drive it into the Medius platform. So, you know, and this is what I love about the partnership with Medius is at that point Medius picks up the data and runs through the process that is available for the MEDIUS customer. Rich, I don't know if you want to pick it up from there. Speaker 4 Yeah, thanks, Brad. I mean, you've said a lot here that really echoes how complex the challenge is for companies who have to tackle e invoicing mandates. The good news is that you guys tackle it for them so they're not having to build this out country by country. They're having to build it out supplier by supplier. I mean, that's the real value I think that Pagero's driving here. On the back end, Medius, of course, supports a full spectrum of invoice submission channels. There's still too much paper or PDF attachments to emails or EDI. The submission channel we can manage, and of course, for invoicing compliance, Pagero manage that for Medius. So when the invoices are received by our our AP automation solution, our customers are leveraging the full capability we have there for true AP automation, delivering AP as it should be in terms of advanced peer based invoice matching, automatic routing for approval of non PO invoices, and so on. And on the back end of all of that, the really detailed visibility and control they have from a reporting and potential audit perspective. So, you know, if the tax authority wants to audit and see how those invoices have been processed and should have been processed through the tax authority, our customers have rapid access to that level of reporting and detail. Speaker 2 Great. Thank you very much both for all this. This topic can give us for many hours of conversations, but we need to conclude. So Brad, Rich, thank you very much for this conversation and for giving me the opportunity to talk with you. Speaker 3 Thank you. Really appreciate the time. Always good to talk about this stuff. And Rich, always good to hear your voice again. And Xavier, thank you so much. Speaker 4 Thanks, Brad. Thanks, Xavier. Speaker 1 That was Keeping up with compliance and e-invoicing. Special thanks to Xavier, Brad, and Rich for their time. If you like this podcast, please be sure to subscribe to catch our next installment of Bridging the GAAP. And to take all your business spend management far beyond basic automation, visit [medius.com](https://www.medius.com/ "medius.com"). Thanks for listening. ## Explore more: ### [Explore Medius AP automation](https://www.medius.com/solutions/medius-accounts-payable-automation/ "Medius Accounts Payable Automation") Automate invoice capture, matching, approvals, and posting with a cloud-based AP automation platform. ### [Learn how to comply with e-invoicing](https://www.medius.com/solutions/medius-accounts-payable-automation/einvoicing/ "eInvoicing") See how automation can streamline the e-invoicing process, keeping you compliant and ready. ### [Automate invoice capture](https://www.medius.com/solutions/medius-accounts-payable-automation/invoice-capture/ "Invoice Capture") Learn how Medius uses invoice capture to extract the date from your supplier invoices and eliminate manual review. ### [How much can you save in AP?](https://www.medius.com/savings-calculator/ "Savings Calculator") Try the savings calculator to compare your metrics against those of other Medius customers and see how much you can save. [Watch more videos](https://www.medius.com/videos/ "Watch more videos") ## Ready to transform your AP? [Book a Demo](https://www.medius.com/book-a-demo/ "Book a Demo") [Contact Us](https://www.medius.com/contact-us/ "Contact Us")