valued processes .”
Instead of workers being pushed out by automation , they can be redistributed to areas that make better use of human skills , though there still exists an opportunity to trim down the wage bill if required , Smith explains .
“ Where we may see some reductions from the human perspective is where overtime is reduced greatly or they might not need to hire part-time individuals to handle peak period ,” he says .
Turning his attention to Esker itself ,
Smith discusses exciting digital opportunities he wants to seize this year surrounding new legislation .
“ We ’ re always looking at ways that we can enhance our solutions and certainly we are now with the B2G ( business-to-government ) initiatives in the Americas ,” Smith shares , referring to e-invoicing becoming mandatory before the end of the 2018 fiscal year for companies in the US that provide goods and services to the government .
“ We ’ ve hired a team to really focus on that in the Americas because it wasn ’ t as big of an initiative here as it has been in Europe and Latin America . We think , with the B2G initiative starting in the Americas , we could see a real spike in growth for electronic invoicing initiatives here . We ’ re going to hopefully see more activity around our accounts receivable solution .”
Moving to Europe , EU directive obligates all contracting authorities to be able to process e-invoices by the end of 2018 and a major e-invoicing initiative launched last year , requiring an interoperable , common standard for B2G trade in Europe , with a deadline for implementation of April 2019 .
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