Barclaycard trials cloud-based e-invoicing

Barclaycard has partnered with KashFlow to pilot an electronic invoicing scheme

Barclaycard is set to trial electronic invoicing

Barclaycard has begun inviting merchants to join a pilot of cloud-based electronic invoicing.

The credit card company has partnered with KashFlow, a London-based software company, which will provide the technology behind the scheme.

Tech Crunch Europe says it has seen an email circulated by Barclaycard stating that the pilot scheme is limited to 100 places. The report goes on to indicate that this is the first time a major bank has backed a cloud-based accounting package from a UK tech start-up.

KashFlow pitches its products as a more intuitive and automated alternative to offerings such as Sage.

According Tech Crunch Europe, the Barclaycard email says the trial will: " Let SMEs do things like create, send and manage their invoices via a web browser, track overdue payments and, optionally, receive payments online via Barclaycard’s payment gateway. This is, of course, also where Barclays generates revenue, charging a three per cent transaction fee for invoices paid this way."

The trial is thought to be set to run for 12 months, after which Barclaycard could launch a full e-invoicing service.

Given that it has been chosen for the pilot, KashFlow, which employs just 12 staff and launched in 2002 with help from the Princes Trust, seems likely to power the full service, if successful.