Portugal Telecom launches the electronic invoice
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Demonstrating once again its transerversatility capacity, the Portugal Telecom Group presented the Electronic Invoice. A project which “makes life easier” for our clients, contributes to a sustainable company environmental policy and places the company in the front platoon of the European Union.
“Our role is to make life easier”. This is the motto for the Electronic Invoice project presented on the 21st of April and allows the sending of invoices of PT Group companies to the email address given by the client. Portugal Telecom therefore becomes the first Portuguese company and once of the first on an international level to have a valid legal Electronic Invoice which is passed onto you with the certification of a digital signature.
 | The development of this platform was carried out by PT Information Systems which, in the words of the Executive Chairman, Miguel Horta e Costa “makes the Group proud” not only because of their capability to develop transversal projects, but because it goes in search of client needs. “At a time in which the importance of convergence to the European Union is spoken about, this occurrence places us in the front platoon in relation to similar companies”.
For Iriarte Esteves, the Executive Manager, this is an important step towards the development of the Information Society. “PT shows itself to be unavoidable in the contribution which it can and should give to the Information Society in Portugal, with a transversal solution for the Group and supported by the vast information systems which we have available”.
 | The Portugal Telecom Group faces this project as a realization of its social sustainable policy. The Electronic Invoice is optional and covers a universe of more than five million clients, which represents a significant saving in paper, a saving which could reach four million sheets of paper in the first year. If every PT client signed up for this possibility, the saving would reach 58 thousands trees per year. The Executive Administrator stated that, “It’s a strong contribution for the development of PT as an environmentally friendly company”
Security, Transparency and Commodity
The Electronic Invoice is optional to clients of PT Comunicações companies. TV Cabo, TMN, PT Prime and SAPO ADSL and Telepac services. Access to this Invoice can be gained through electronic mail or through website of these companies. Once requested, the electronic invoice will substitute the paper invoice. Parallel to receiving it through electronic mail (with a digital signature as way to ensure its legal value), subscribers can also consult on-line their invoices from the past three months on the websites and they can also download the invoices using a pdf version.
Iriarte Esteves underlines that “the Electronic Invoice brings a very significant added value to clients allowing them greater ease in the analysis of their accounts while guaranteeing total security, transparency and commodity”. Therefore, this document represents a significant increase in commodity and the ease of storing and organising of invoices on behalf of client, and reducing mail. Its analysis is also made easier, making it more practical to identify the consumption profile.
In the medium-term, the subscription of this service is expected to be a large one. According to Manuel Garcia, Project Manager for the Electronic Invoice, this project should finance itself at the end of three years.
The development process of this project lasted eight months and counted on a team of approximately 40 people and an investment of approximately four million euros. According to a statement made to éPT!, Nuno Pedro, Executive Manager of PT – Information Systems “this was a great transversal process” and the integration of all the billing and CRM systems of the different Group companies need to be underlined. The technological development of the Electronic Invoice is the result of a partnership between PT – Information Systems and the e.doc companies, which are leaders in bill presentation, customer service and Multicert area, the company which is responsible for the entire digital certification component.
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