Implementation of e-Invoicing in the Accounts Payable Process at TÜV SÜD

About TÜV SÜD

TÜV SÜD is an internationally active, independent service provider from Germany. It inspects and certifies systems, facilities, machines and objects of all kinds in order to manage risks and thus reduce dangers to people and the environment. The company was founded in the second half of the 19th century in Mannheim, Germany. As of today employs around 30,000 people worldwide, who use their expertise to secure innovations and thus enable progress.

The cooperation between Comarch and TÜV SÜD roots back into 2017 and at first was meant for transmission of outgoing invoices and expanded in 2024 to the reception of incoming invoices.

The Challenge

The challenge within the TÜV SÜD E-Invoicing Project concerns the following three fields:

Short implementation timeframe
The Wachstumschancengesetz (Growth Opportunities Act) came into force in Germany in March 2024. It requires companies above a certain size to be able to receive electronic invoices by 1 January 2025 at the latest. TÜV SÜD was also affected by this requirement and had to ensure implementation within a very short time frame. In September 2024, the decision was made in favour of Comarch. The entire project was successfully implemented within just two months – a remarkably fast rollout that demonstrates Comarch’s high implementation strength.
International Scalability
As an organisation with a global presence TÜV SÜD is required to face complex e-invoicing and e-reporting mandates across different countries. The complexity requires TÜV SÜD to meet technical and legal requirements that vary strongly from country to country (e.g. B2B2C dimension, authentication rules, centralized vs. decentralized e-invoicing mandates, status handling, attachment handling, validations). To ensure to meet the said requirements a knowledge of local legal and technical requirements is necessary.
This requires each company to employ proper compliance-experts or a professional provider specialized in such local legal and technical requirements such as Comarch.
Complex IT Landscape
The local compliance is not the only challenge as TÜV SÜD as a very mature organization operates by using different IT systems via different subsidiaries, entities and various locations. The e-invoicing partner thus has to face the challenge to integrate with different systems in different formats and ensure proper via different channels and interfaces.

Key message

The most important three messages are:

Cooperation:
The success of the project was based on close cooperation – in-depth knowledge of TÜV SÜD’s processes and active participation in analysis and testing were crucial.
Speed:
When schedules are particularly tight, close cooperation is essential, as is an IT partner who can act quickly and reliably.
(No) do-it-yourself:
Many companies’ attempts to do this themselves fail – so it is advisable, as TÜV SÜD does, to work directly with an experienced partner who can ensure rapid implementation and long-term compliance