A Ground-Level Interview, at the Right Time
On 2 November 2026, Dealkare — publisher of a contract and payment tracking solution — released a six-question interview with John Lévy, chartered accountant at Trevys, on LinkedIn.
The timing is deliberate: two months after the official launch of the e-invoicing reform, the first real-world friction points are beginning to surface. Two of them are of particular concern to finance directors: the risk of duplicate payments and the ambiguity of acknowledgement receipts across platforms.
The First Risk: Paying the Same Invoice Twice
This is one of the least anticipated side effects of the roll-out phase. Many businesses, in an effort to protect supplier relationships and avoid any payment delays, are still sending invoices through two channels simultaneously: via their accredited platform (AP) on one hand, and by email as a PDF attachment on the other.
The result: the client's accounts payable team receives the same invoice twice, in two different formats. Without a clear reconciliation process in place, the risk of double posting — and double payment — is very real.
This is no theoretical edge case. It is a situation John Lévy is seeing first-hand with clients currently in transition, particularly within accounting teams that have yet to formalise their new processing rules.
What to do:
- Establish a clear internal rule: which version of the invoice takes precedence? The electronic version received via the accredited platform, without exception.
- Train your teams to never post a PDF received by email if a corresponding electronic invoice is expected or has already been received through the AP.
- Implement a systematic reconciliation between incoming AP flows and emails, for as long as it takes for the electronic channel to become the established norm.
The Second Risk: Acknowledgement Receipts That Don't All Mean the Same Thing
The reform introduces a standardised invoice lifecycle, with mandatory status updates to be transmitted throughout the process: submitted, routed, rejected, refused, approved, and so on.
In practice, however, accredited platforms do not always interpret these statuses in the same way. The same event — for instance, an invoice being received by the intended recipient — can generate different labels depending on which AP is used. Some platforms send an acknowledgement as soon as the invoice is made available; others wait for a read confirmation or an explicit acceptance.
The direct consequence: a sender may have no reliable way of knowing where their invoice actually stands. Has it reached the right recipient? Has it been picked up? Is it awaiting validation, or has it already been technically rejected?
John Lévy recommends aligning the interpretation of these statuses internally, and advises against relying solely on the labels displayed in a platform's interface without fully understanding what they mean in the context of cross-platform interoperability.
What to do:
- Work with your AP to document the precise meaning of each status shown in your interface.
- Set up active monitoring for invoices whose status has not progressed within a reasonable timeframe.
- Do not confuse the absence of a rejection with a confirmed receipt — the two are not the same thing.
Why This Interview Matters for Your Finance Function
The six answers given in this interview are not drawn from theory. They reflect hands-on experience supporting finance departments and firms through the transition to e-invoicing.
For Trevys, they provide a public, sourced reference to share with CFOs and finance managers who are looking to:
- Avoid duplicate supplier payments during the roll-out phase;
- Build reliable tracking for both outgoing and incoming invoices;
- Understand the current limitations of cross-platform interoperability.
The reform is live. The tools are working — but how they fit together still requires careful attention and a good deal of internal education.
How Trevys Can Help
Trevys supports finance departments and firms across all aspects of the e-invoicing reform: selecting the right accredited platform, cleaning up master data, training teams, and managing change.
If you would like to assess your current situation and identify the risks specific to your organisation, get in touch with our team.
Trevys — Chartered Accountants & Advisory