The leading logistics company DB Cargo has successfully digitized and standardized its international outgoing invoice processes with Unifiedpost.
DB Cargo AG is a leading company in the international transport and logistics sector and bundles all of Deutsche Bahn's national and international rail freight activities. As a subsidiary of one of Europe's largest railroad companies, DB Cargo operates in 18 different European countries and sets standards in terms of efficiency and innovation in freight transportation.
In order to meet the high demands of a globally active company, Deutsche Bahn has set itself the goal of streamlining and standardizing its group-wide outgoing invoice processes. For this major project, Deutsche Bahn's digitalization partner, DB Systel, is working with Unifiedpost (formerly "crossinx") as a global invoice service provider.
DB Cargo's task as initiator and "first user" of the new service was to optimize the existing outgoing invoice processes of all 15 DB Cargo companies, taking into account the country-specific legal requirements, and to use only Unifiedpost solutions throughout Europe. The standardization of 15 units in different countries certainly entailed challenges. With country-specific legal requirements and around 150,000 outgoing invoices per year, the highly complex, large-scale international project was very multi-layered. However, after a successful nine months of process changes, the project was completed.
Customer information
Company: DB Cargo AG
Division: International transportation and logistics company
Location: 18 European countries
The challenges of international invoicing
In terms of kilometers traveled, DB Cargo is the leader in Germany and Europe. The company is also a pioneer in the digitalization of invoice dispatch: the decisive course was set over ten years ago and all processes were adapted accordingly.
However, the complexity of cross-border Group structures and processes is constantly increasing, and the inconsistent legal requirements of EU countries with regard to digitization pose a new challenge. This prompted DB's finance department to commission its digitalization partner DB Systel to offer a uniform outgoing invoice service for all units.
DB Cargo records around 150,000 outgoing invoices per year across all companies. And the invoices are highly complex. With a wide range of attachments, e.g. about train journeys, route details, wagon types and deployments through to the transported weights, they comprise huge amounts of data with sometimes up to five levels per listed invoice item. The creation of such large PDF files requires enormous computing power at Unifiedpost. In addition, the structure of the invoice items was subject to a logic that had been individually developed over many years by the internal IT departments for the specific requirements of individual companies.
"Understanding this logic in detail and mapping it in a new way was a major challenge for [Unifiedpost]," says von Ammon. "A simple 1:1 implementation was not possible, but [Unifiedpost] persistently worked out all the special features and found a solution for almost every requirement. Today, some aspects of the application are perhaps no longer quite as flexible as they used to be, but apart from that, the standardization brings us clear advantages overall - in the process, in maintenance and as an investment in the future," the project manager sums up.
Achieving success together with Unifiedpost
The standardization of systems across the various units has been a goal of DB since 2018. DB Cargo was the first unit to implement the project with Unifiedpost at the end of 2019.
"Our initial situation was certainly rather unusual for [Unifiedpost]: we were already digitized, but we wanted to move away from the existing solution, which had grown over ten years and was no longer future-oriented," says von Ammon.
In 2016, the proportion of electronic invoices to letter mail at DB Cargo was still 42 to 58 percent, in 2019 it was already 65 to 35 percent and in summer 2020 it was 71 to 29 percent.
In addition to electronic invoicing, DB Cargo expanded its cooperation with Unifiedpost to include the sending of invoice mailings.
"With [Unifiedpost], DB has found a service provider that enables the fulfillment of the most diverse international requirements in the field of digitization of invoice dispatch via a central outbound channel," says von Ammon.
All legal requirements, such as audit-proof archiving, have also been implemented. DB Cargo receives all invoices sent back into its own archive. A return channel to DB Cargo's archive system was implemented specifically for this purpose.
Efficiency, standardization and future-proofing
- Increase in the proportion of electronic invoices from 42% (2016) to 71% (2020)
- Central control of international invoice dispatch
- Fulfillment of various international requirements
- Audit-proof archiving
- Standardized processes and less maintenance effort
- Future-proof solution
A successful partnership for the digital future
In Unifiedpost, DB Cargo has found a partner that understands the high demands of international invoicing and offers a future-proof, standardized solution. The successful implementation of the project shows that even complex, already digitalized structures can be optimized and adapted to the latest requirements.
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