• by Michael Shields , July 29, 2004

Answering an ongoing outcry in the industry, the radio giant is now offering its agencies and clients the opportunity to receive invoices electronically.

In an e-mail missive sent from executive vice president and CFO Jacques Tortoroli, the company announced to its clients that Infinity had signed up with both Wicks Broadcast Solutions' Agencyminder.com and radioinvoices.com to begin sending electronic invoicing.

Infinity listed several potential benefits to electronic invoicing in the e-mail, including: faster processing, increased productivity, simplified reconciliation and verification, and cheaper billing costs, among others.

Gary Fries, president and CEO of the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB), called Infinity's move "a huge step."

"When you have a company of Infinity's size, it's kind of like the lead horses are pulling the wagon and everybody else gets pulled along," he said.

Fries has been part of a RAB task force, which along with the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) had been pushing for the industry to adopt electronic data interchange, a hot issue in the radio and TV businesses. "Radio needs to be proactive, and companies like Infinity have given [electronic invoicing] a very strong endorsement," he said. At a recent ANA Marketing Accountability Forum, members of a panel discussing media data accountability rallied against current billing and media tracking procedures, saying they are overly manual and called for change

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