With 9,000 invoices per month, Isospace is ready for the electronic invoicing revolution

Always on the lookout for current issues, particularly regulatory ones, Philippe Savajols took the subject of electronic invoicing head on two years ago. “Not suffering but supporting changes is part of my management style. I quickly understood that we could turn this question into an opportunity,” says the CEO of this SME specializing in the development of offices, businesses and hotels based in Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine).

With a workforce of 85 employees and 25 million turnover, Isospace must, from September 1, be able to receive electronic invoices from its suppliers. The show will only be obligatory for her a year later. And accounting documents, Isospace produces around 9,000 per month. This shows that the stakes are high.

“The risk for us is that we do not have the correct identifiers for our customers, therefore their Siren or Siret numbers, and that our invoices are therefore rejected by approved platforms in the context of electronic invoicing. And a rejected invoice is an unpaid invoice,” he explains.

Update all customer data

To launch this project, Philippe Savajols therefore analyzed the various risks, audited his internal accounting system and weighed the advantages and disadvantages of a platform or new accounting software, before opting for the second option. “In fact, we took the opportunity to switch our ERP (enterprise resource planning) to a CRM (customer relationship management software) tool capable of managing this subject of electronic invoicing. All for 100,000 euros of investment in the software, to which must be added the time spent updating our customer database in particular,” he says.

For this, Philippe Savajols decided to go back over the last 18 months. “We had to call customers to ask them for the correct SIRET or SIREN numbers depending on the establishments for which we had worked. Some discovered the issue of electronic invoicing during our calls. So they didn’t necessarily have the answers in front of them,” he testifies. Hours of tedious updates.

New ways of working for business managers

For Isospace salespeople, this move to electronic invoicing is also a bit of a game changer. “As soon as quotes are established, business managers must be more precise in filling in the administrative data of prospects. And we’re not going to lie, it bores them. I had to be pedagogical in explaining the risks. If the invoices did not arrive safely, they would not be honored. Which would impact cash flow, particularly for the payment of salaries,” illustrates the manager of Isospace, happy that the message has gotten across.

For the three employees in charge of accounting, this electronic invoicing will not directly impact their productivity. “We had already developed an accounting AI capable of matching an invoice with a purchase order. If this was the case, it was immediately pre-validated. On the other hand, the main advantage of electronic invoicing will be the timestamp. There, we will have the date and time of receipt of the invoice by the customers. They will no longer be able to say that they did not receive it. This will give more weight to our reminders,” he concludes, confident for September 1, 2026 but especially 2027 when his company will have to issue electronic invoices.