Launching in the Chinese Market with Compliant Invoicing

As the world’s second-largest economy and an industrial and manufacturing powerhouse, global businesses must take China seriously.  Boasting the biggest global digital consumer population, with over 700 million buyers, this nation represents an attractive prospect for enterprises looking to tap into new consumers in a growing market.

However, achieving this goal very much depends on ensuring that your business is optimized to operate well in China; whether that’s down to your technology, processes, and especially your compliance. By ensuring that the engine of your enterprise is tuned to the complexities of the local market and its standards, you’re more likely to be successful in terms of sales — leading to higher revenue and growth. Moreover, taking your invoicing compliance seriously will help you avoid costly fines and damage to your reputation, while also giving you a significant competitive advantage. This article explores how AP automation and complaint invoicing make all this possible.

Challenges of Compliance in the Chinese Market

Entering the Chinese market as a foreign entity inherently presents specific challenges, all of which tend to be exacerbated by language gaps and cultural differences. For example, new businesses operating in China successfully navigate taxation, avoid misclassification, and ensure proper documentation for tariffs and global trade compliance. In particular, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) heavily regulates foreign exchange in the country and closely scrutinizes the incoming and outgoing payment flows of foreign businesses. SAFE can demand compliant invoicing from foreign enterprises and their Chinese suppliers. 

Therefore, ensuring regular and accurate reporting is critical — particularly when all these issues have recently been made more burdensome by supply chain disruptions, geopolitical strife, and fluctuating tariffs causing economic upheaval worldwide. 

Then, there are the technical challenges of invoicing in China to consider. For one, much of the country has not yet fully adopted digital invoicing and still relies on outdated paper or PDF. On the other hand, due to high rates of fraud, all invoicing has to be conducted through the Chinese government, which can lead to further challenges in collaboration. 

So, is there a way companies can quickly and easily improve their invoicing to attain full compliance and strengthen their position in China?

How Compliance Invoicing with AP Automation Can Help

The good news is that Tungsten Automation has recently launched our integrated Accounts Payable (AP) invoicing solution, InvoiceAgility, in the Chinese market. 

By leveraging artificial intelligence, as well as our wealth of experience in trade regulation and invoicing, our solution allows users to easily overcome their compliance challenges while also improving the quality of their financial data and the efficiency of their supply chain. After simplifying your invoicing and financial information, you’ll be free to focus on the growth of your business in China without worrying about national regulations. 

Not only that, but our invoicing solution can also automatically keep track of macroeconomic changes and trends that might otherwise disrupt your reporting, such as international tariffs or other sanctions. 

And the best part? Our entry into the Chinese market ourselves means that our solution itself is now hosted in China. Not only does this give us the right perspective on the regulatory challenges of operating in the country as a supplier, but it also means that all invoicing data remains in the country – protecting your and your customers’ data privacy. 

Tungsten Automation: Your Partner for Success in Global Markets

Tungsten Automation has been quietly leading the AP automation sector for over four decades. As a leader in Intelligent Automation (IA), Intelligent Document Processing (IDP), Process Orchestration (PO), and invoicing compliance, we’re here to help you streamline invoicing no matter where you choose to operate. 

So, if you’d like to take the first step in your intelligent automation journey, talk to an Invoice Automation specialist today.