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Touchless AP starts before the invoice arrives
In short
- E-invoicing delivers invoice data in a structured format. Your accounts payable (AP) automation starts with clean data, not scans and manual keying.
- Optimera, part of Saint-Gobain Distribution Norway, uses Logiq e-invoicing and Medius AP automation. The group processes up to 840,000 invoices a year, with around 80% of purchase order (PO) invoices and 74% of non-PO with touchless routing.
- Logiq Document Control reads the whole invoice, finds references such as PO and project numbers, and checks them before the invoice reaches your AP team.
- E-invoicing mandates are spreading across Europe. Belgium, France and Poland already require e-invoices, Germany is phasing in its mandate, Norway has adopted rules from 2027, and Sweden is investigating.
I've spent 30 years in sales helping companies digitalise their documents, the last five of them at Logiq. On 22 September 2026, I joined Medius and our shared customer Optimera for a webinar on one question: what if you didn't have to think about invoices at all? Here's what we covered.
What is e-invoicing, and why does it matter for AP automation?
E-invoicing means sending an invoice as structured data from one system to another, not as a PDF or on paper.
For your AP team, that changes the starting point. The data goes straight into Medius: no scanning, no manual keying and no fixing OCR errors. The approver still sees a familiar invoice image, while the structured data underneath does the work.
How did Optimera reach 80% touchless?
Optimera went live with Logiq and Medius in 2017. Through mergers and acquisitions, the group has grown from about 90 locations to more than 200, and it now handles up to 840,000 invoices a year.
To put that in context: Medius shared that many businesses sit at around 32% touchless, and best-in-class organisations at around 49%.
It didn't happen overnight. Optimera was open about the first year being hard, and the backlog of open tasks grew. What turned it around was steady fine-tuning, plus a capture solution added in 2020 for the shrinking share of PDF and paper invoices.
What does Logiq Document Control do?
Document Control reads the whole invoice, not just the standard fields. It can:
- find PO numbers, and project numbers in building and construction
- check that an order number is valid in your purchase order system
- match names, aliases and cost centres to the right person or group
At the start, Document Control was Optimera's only tool for this. Today it works alongside Medius capture. For example, if a supplier writes a name differently from how it appears in Medius, Document Control uses an alias to translate it.
Like any automation, it needs regular tuning, because your suppliers and projects keep changing.
We can also stop an incoming invoice at Logiq and return it to the supplier when a reference is missing or invalid. That puts the effort with the supplier and gives your AP team time back.
What is changing in e-invoicing rules?
Europe is moving quickly from PDF to structured e-invoices:
- Belgium: e-invoicing between businesses has been mandatory since 1 January 2026.
- France: in force since 1 September 2026 for large and mid-sized companies. SMEs and micro-businesses follow on 1 September 2027.
- Poland: the national KSeF system is mandatory for most businesses in 2026, and for the smallest from 1 January 2027.
- Germany: every business must be able to receive e-invoices. The transition period for issuing them ends in 2026, or 2027 for smaller businesses.
- Norway: businesses must send e-invoices to other businesses from 1 January 2027 and be able to receive them from 1 January 2030.
- Sweden: a government inquiry is assessing domestic e-invoicing and is due to report by 30 November 2027.
At EU level, the VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) package targets VAT fraud. From 1 July 2030, invoices between businesses in different EU countries must be structured e-invoices, so a PDF will no longer count.
Security matters too. From 1 October 2027, OpenPeppol will require every Peppol service provider to hold ISO/IEC 27001 certification. Logiq is already ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified.
Where should an e-invoicing project start?
It depends on your business. Logiq is strong in the Nordics, so many customers roll out e-invoicing across the Nordic countries first, then add other markets. And after about ten years of working with Medius, our integration with Medius is well proven.
FAQ
What is a touchless invoice?
An invoice that goes from receipt to posting without anyone handling it manually.
Can e-invoices from Logiq go straight into Medius?
Yes! Structured data from the Logiq network flows directly into your Medius process.
How do invoices reach the right company in a group?
Each e-invoice carries an identifier for the receiving company, such as its VAT or organisation number. At Optimera, that means every invoice lands with the correct group company.
Automation isn't a one-off project, and Optimera would be the first to say so. Thank you to Åse Tokle and Siri Berntsen at Optimera for sharing their story so openly. If you'd like to see what e-invoicing could do for your AP process, connect with me or with Yvonne Jans at Medius.
Anne Ferm is Head of Sales for Sweden and Denmark at Logiq. Founded in 1999, Logiq is a leading Nordic provider of EDI and e-invoicing with more than 3,500 customers, and a Medius partner.