From fragmented to connected compliance: A roadmap for multinationals

"Multinationals are starting to really feel the pain of mandates happening that are really impacting their essentially their AP and AR processes, their tax treatment," Bailey explains. The noise around e-invoicing has reached a fever pitch, and businesses are scrambling for help to "become compliant, stay compliant, figure out what it means in every market they serve." 

The shift has been dramatic. A decade ago, Bailey says, "100% of the RFPs we received were for automation." Traditional AP automation projects focused on efficiency gains. Today, the picture has flipped: it's "almost 100% compliance driven." 

Here's the critical insight: you can't separate compliance and automation anymore. 

"You cannot come to market today looking to automate your processes without considering document compliance, whether it's e-invoicing or e-reporting," Bailey says. "They're really married." 

Organizations getting this right are using compliance as a gateway to unlock automation, cleaner data, faster payments, fraud prevention, and a foundation for AI and supply chain innovation. Done strategically, e-invoicing mandates deliver what Bailey calls "free of charge automation." 

Every government is tackling e-invoicing differently. And businesses are mirroring that complexity in how they respond. 

"If you go out to market today and survey ten companies, how they're meeting these challenges in detail, how their organization is geared up towards it—there's ten different flavors," Bailey observes. "In the same way that ten countries doing PEPPOL have ten variances, ten flavors of that ice cream, so to speak, companies have the same ten flavors in how they're addressing them." 

At one end of the spectrum are organizations that "know this world, the invoice e-reporting mandates, and the whole technical requirements, the stuff that comes with it better than we do." At the other end are companies with "no idea. In fact, they're acting late. They're coming to market late, which means they cannot act strategically because it's an emergency." 

Then there's the vast middle: organizations that know they have to do something, but the initiative is being driven reactively, often by whichever department hit the mandate first in a particular market. 

So why are tax authorities driving this transformation instead of industry? 

Bailey has a compelling theory: closed systems and siloed networks slowed digitization, and governments stepped in to force the issue. 

"I think it's maybe because industries weren't interoperable enough. I think maybe it's because industries didn't open up and communicate with each other fast enough," he explains. 

Closed AP automation platforms locked in suppliers. Buyers chose a platform, and their suppliers were forced to use that same technology. This created walled gardens that prevented the kind of open, digital ecosystems that could have delivered rich supply chain and tax data years ago. 

"Had that happened over the last decade, the governments would already have rich supply chain data. They'd already have rich tax fiscal information as they need it," Bailey says. "I believe that governments are intervening now beyond wanting to collect tax a bit differently. I believe that governments are intervening because industry didn't act fast enough." 

That government intervention is ultimately driving positive change. "I think this will potentially drive digital value to all market participants, and it will increase the bar for digital first behaviors." 

What should multinationals be doing right now, whether they're preparing for the UK mandate or navigating the patchwork of requirements across Europe? 

Bailey offers three clear, actionable steps:

Get your master data in order

Before worrying about which technology to buy or which mandate model to follow, get your data ready. 

"Do you have it structured and consistently standardized across your organization?" Bailey asks. "Is it in Terry from accounts' mind, and they're editing invoices in motion? Is it in a plethora of systems and warehouse systems and ERPs?" 

The critical invoice data needs to be accessible, accurate, and ready to flow digitally. 

Assemble a cross-functional dream team

E-invoicing touches finance, AP, AR, procurement, supply chain, tax, and IT. 

"Find a dream team, assemble a squad that's going to look at how invoicing is going to touch various points of the organization, all of those departments," Bailey says. "Doesn't matter whether it's tax, doesn't matter whether it's IT. It doesn't matter if it's finance, AP, AR or something else." 

You need a cross-departmental team with a clear owner to drive strategy and execution. 

Overline business value

Here's the opportunity many organizations miss: governments are forcing you to digitize. That means you're getting automation for free. 

"If I'm a department leader, I'm getting free of charge automation," Bailey explains. 

Take that AP or AR automation project that's been sitting at number 27 on your to-do list for five years. The government just gave you the business case. 

"Guess what, the government's about to force you to do this," Bailey says. "How can this free of charge automation be used as a superpower to drive transformation?" 

Where is all of this heading? Bailey is clear: "Touchless compliance is really interesting. And it's no longer a choice for organizations. It's going to happen." 

Tax and compliance will become automated, real-time, and embedded in daily business operations. Determining the right tax rate, exchanging invoices in standardized formats, reconciling transactions, and reporting to authorities will all run in the background. 

This frees professionals to focus on value creation instead of compliance administration. 

"I think this is positive because it can release tax, finance operational, AP, AR professionals to value added activities," Bailey says. Instead of "spending days, weeks and months preparing for audits, preparing for returns and the spreadsheets that get flown around the organization," finance and tax professionals can shift their focus to strategy, growth, ESG reporting, trade compliance, M&A, and deploying AI on high-quality data. 

"This data in this humble and loaded invoice doesn't just feed tax," Bailey explains. "It feeds ESG requirements that are being pushed upon every organization. It feeds the trade regulations that are coming. If done well, it feeds your own growth strategies. It can feed your own M&A strategy because you can look at it. You can deploy those AI agents of the future on good quality, blistering speed data."