A Censuswide survey of 550 business buyers across the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Australia has found that, in spite of digitisation, there is friction in the business-to-business (B2B) buying process.
The survey, for B2B payment platform provider TreviPay, reported that buyers cite persistent challenges such as incorrect invoices (30%), limited enterprise resource planning (ERP) integration (31%), inconsistent invoice formats (31%) and delays in approval workflows (34%).
According to TreviPay, these issues persist because order-to-cash processes often span multiple systems and teams. While individual steps may be automated, the overall experience remains fragmented, requiring manual intervention when data or workflows fail to align.
Inez Berkhof-Hollander, vice-president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at TreviPay, said: “Finance teams across all industries – B2B buyers and sellers alike – are under pressure. There’s a lot of pressure from a cashflow perspective. They are also very much challenged by new regulation and compliance with countries mandating how invoicing should be done.”
In 2025, the UK government said it would mandate e-invoicing for all VAT invoices from 2029. During consultation on e-invoicing, businesses that responded to the government’s call for feedback on its proposals discussed the importance of standardisation in the effective implementation of e-invoicing.
Standards were identified as an essential way to boost interoperability and reduce administrative burdens across borders, facilitating trade both across the UK and with businesses overseas, especially when aligned with international frameworks such as Peppol, which provides a shared language and set of specifications with which to do business.
One of TreviPay’s customers, a manufacturer with operations in the Netherlands and the UK, sees advantages in the UK government adopting the emerging standard. “We’re waiting for the UK authorities to decide exactly what the direction is in terms of the format [they select], then obviously we will incorporate that into our own development,” said Alex Harris, parts sales manager at DAF Trucks.
Given that the Netherlands is adopting Peppol and the UK is looking like it will, Harris hopes it will be possible to develop one e-invoicing system to support the Netherlands, but this could also be repurposed should the UK adopt the same standard.
DAF Trucks uses TreviPay as its global partner for centralised billing. “Our customers, which are larger businesses, are able to adopt the central building programme and have a single credit line, flexible invoicing nationwide wherever they may take their vehicle for servicing, which is a big benefit for them,” he said.
Looking at other problem areas highlighted by survey respondents, the poll found that buyers experience issues such as incorrect invoices (30%), limited ERP integration (31%), inconsistent invoice formats (31%) and delays in approval workflows (34%).
The survey found that larger organisations place greater emphasis on ERP integration, purchase controls and governance, while mid-sized businesses value flexibility and speed. When asked about their use of artificial intelligence (AI) in finance, those businesses with 500 or more people said they were most likely to be looking to streamline processes and reduce manual tasks (20%), in contrast to just 9% of companies with 100 to 200 employees.
The survey found that almost all companies have concerns about the lack of internal expertise and regulatory compliance. There also appears to be a gap between tactical use and strategic integration. Many organisations use AI today, but fewer have embedded it across the order-to-cash process in a way that consistently improves outcomes.