Statkraft optimizes financial operations with e-invoicing

For over a century, Statkraft has been at the forefront of clean energy, long before climate change became a global concern. Their vision to "renew the way the world is powered" drives their mission to be Europe's premier provider of renewable energy solutions. With an expansive portfolio of flexible hydropower plants and a diverse range of other renewable energy assets, Statkraft manages financial operations across 21 countries and handles over 300,000 invoices annually. 

“We have implemented e-invoicing in six countries so far. Norway is the most mature country for us, with 90% e-invoices. The other countries are Germany, Sweden, Italy, Turkey, and Brazil. Right now, we're also working on connecting around 40 businesses in the UK,” says Torgar Rist, Head of GBS Finance Invoice to Pay at Statkraft.

The collaboration with Pagero started in 2012 when Statkraft began evaluating various suppliers of e-invoicing solutions. Several factors influenced their final decision to select Pagero.

"Pagero's range of products, reliability and established brand all contributed to this decision. However, perhaps the most crucial factor was Pagero's global reach, which aligned with the countries we were looking at," Rist explains.

Since partnering with Pagero, Statkraft has seen notable improvements in data quality and achieved regulatory compliance in countries such as Turkey and Italy. With over 90% of invoices processed electronically in Norway, Pagero has helped Statkraft achieve significant operational efficiencies.

"I would advise everyone to keep an eye on this development. In many cases, you will experience positive effects — saving resources, improving data quality, and ensuring compliance with regulations. This transition represents the future, and it's prudent to prepare for the shift away from PDF and paper-based processes to ensure effectiveness when it becomes mandated."

He also points out that it’s important to have the right expectations of the immediate return on investment when transitioning to e-invoicing, since it can vary depending on the business model and operational context. At Statkraft in Norway, embracing e-invoicing yielded significant benefits, allowing them to reallocate staff to more strategic accounting functions. By streamlining their processes and focusing on increasing e-invoicing trade while reducing workload, Statkraft was able to establish a dedicated team with global financial responsibility. 

"We focused on increasing e-invoicing trade and reducing the workload in our team, and we also process-oriented ourselves. This enabled us to establish a new team called Global Accounting,” he says. 

This team took on the responsibility for overseeing accounting operations across the company, including standardisation and consolidations, leading to increased professionalism and capacity to manage accounting functions at a global scale.

"If you are a big company with a high volume of invoicing you can get a more immediate positive business case, I would say, and that's our situation in Norway. But it's a different story in Italy, where we have 125 companies that only handle a few thousand invoices a year. With that setup, the calculation for immediate results looks very different, but you still get the benefits of higher data quality and compliance with strict local laws related to invoice handling and so on," Rist explains.

As Statkraft continues its journey towards sustainability and clean energy dominance, Pagero remains a trusted partner, paving the way for future expansion. The partnership was renewed in 2020 through a complete tender process.