Advantages of the QR-bill
Switzerland has been working for years to establish a harmonised standard for processing payments. The existing means of payment are being replaced by the QR-bill. This is more than just a formal change; it is a revolution in the accounting and financial world.
Buying and selling is at the heart of the business process. Until now, such transactions were handled in a customised and disparate way. While the information displayed on invoices has some uniformity, they are presented differently from company to company. To some extent, this diversity also exists in the payment forms of financial institutions. This disparity represents a major obstacle to the fully digitized processing of these transactions.
An ordinary commercial transaction requires four accounting entries: sale by the seller, purchase by the buyer, payment by the buyer and collection by the seller. Over time, more or less costly solutions have appeared to optimise this work and limit errors: the restrictive masks of accounting software, integrated management solutions (ERP) linking operations and finances and more recently document reading tools (OCR). At the same time, financial institutions have developed ways of importing and exporting transaction data between their systems and those of companies.
The QR-bill contains all required information: identity of the payer, identity and bank account (IBAN) of the recipient, amount and currency, transaction reference number, additional information (if necessary, at the seller's discretion). In addition to being mentioned on the invoice, these elements are also in digitizeable format in the QR code. The use of a standard allows for an easier and more secure transmission between the systems of each party involved at a lower cost: standard software on the market are adapted to this new format and QR codes can even be scanned with a basic smartphone.
Digitized processing of these transactions offers undeniable advantages: significant reduction in manual input (fewer errors, improved processing speed and cost), simplified identification of transactions, data available for analysis, easier or even unnecessary reconciliations. All of this without forgetting that it is still possible to print QR-bills to organise sales and payments as before.
Detailed presentation, SIX and SwissBanking
https://www.paymentstandards.ch/fr/home.html
Simplified presentation, SIX and SwissBanking
Introduction of QR invoices, SME portal of the Confederation