Electronic Invoice would Save the World… Supposed to be.

“Invoice + bank remittance” is …, after all, out of date now…

“When you mail a billing invoice in paper, it will be paid until its deadline. Indeed, I believed it was the way to do it until a couple of years ago, but now, it is old-fashioned.

For example, when you mailed a couple of invoices, naturally it will be paid combined. Then a person would identify the payments…really analog!

Speaking of human tasks, it reminds me an old time when salaries were paid in brown envelopes, even to the pennies.

People are talking about ‘Fintech’, yet it is useless.

Even in “Bank API as a national policy”, only “Reference type APIs” have been released partially after a long way. Moreover, the Nationwide Bank Data Communication System in Japan has its unique problem in text data communication. That must be corrected…

I would like to process from billing to payment settlement without human intervention.

That’s right! “The ones born in the 70’s” should be the ones to say good-by to “bad ways of doing things” done so far. (?)

If Banks are not yet usable, let’s use a “Settlement agent” (Money transfer agent)!

1. Register “electronic invoice” on the settlement agent,
2. Make request to the settlement agent and have them email the “customer”,
3. Receive a report if there was a deposit from “customer” to the settlement agent.

In this way, the workflow would become unmanned.

Conversations with Technical Support of a money transfer agent regarding APIs… (This is fiction!)

Me: “Hey, hey, even if I specify the template ID it is not reflected in the invoice, right?”

(1 month later)

Support: “Ah, that’s true. I confirmed with our developers, they said the specification is not to reflect it. Our document is wrong.” (What?)

Me: “And also, even if I have set JST as timezone for date of invoices, it doesn’t seem to be reflected.”」

(1 month later)

Support: “That is the specification. Even if you specify the timezone, it is shown in PST.” (Huh?)

Me: “Also, the phone number for the billing source is not indicated on the bill…”

(1 month later)

Support; “Ah, that is a mistake in the document. The Phone object works if requested as child object of address object. Even though it is described as a sibling in the document. (I’ll kill you!)

note) In the capture image of sample code below, relationship of address and phone is wrong.

Well, the APIs designed by the settlement agent (money transfer agent) is really rational. And regarding the “REST Invoicing API” of “PayPAL Inc.”, I think it is awesome. (For overseas remittances, banks cannot match it.)

(But, there are some problems, at the same time… Especially, Support…)

Incidentally, in an open event “Super Networking 2017” (2017-06-17), for which I am involved in the committee, electronic invoices (PayPal invoice) are practically used for collection of participation fee.

If you are up for the challenge, please join. (!?)

An email of “electronic invoice” will be delivered immediately… supposedly…

If you are interested in the details, such as source codes, please refer to the following related articles.

• Episode 527: Calling PayPal Invoicing API at Auto-step
• Episode 528: Automatic Confirmation of PayPal Status at Automatic Step
• Episode 529: Making PayPal Operation into Subroutine
• Episode 530: Automate Payment Operation with “Banking APIs”