Workinvoice, fintech of our ecosystem, by welcoming the new legislation has been able to create a new market in partnership with CRIF and PWC. We asked CEO Matteo Tarroni to tell us what it is all about.

The first platform to sell and buy tax credits is created. How does it work? Is it the first in Italy or in Europe?

The creation of a secondary market for entirely digital transferable tax credits and realized through a marketplace is certainly a novelty for Italy. We analyzed a couple of platforms in the USA, which have increased the liquidity of the State and Federal Tax Credits.

What is your role in the initiative?

Workinvoice creates digital infrastructures and designs the related processes that allow counterparties to buy and sell credits on a marketplace. In the case of the trade receivables market (operational from 2014), these are companies wanting to sell their invoices to specialized investment funds in order to anticipate their collection. In the case of this new platform, these are companies and banks wanting to sell their tax credits to other companies that want to reduce their tax burden.
A simple concept indeed, but one that requires an infrastructure that designs processes and implements them digitally and efficiently to provide marketplace members with the best user experience while containing operating costs and ultimately the sustainability of the marketplace itself, which must break even quicker. This is what Workinvoice does.

When was the collaboration with Crif born? And how did you work together?

We have been working together with the CRIF Group since 2018, with both its “souls”: the corporate (Cribis) and the financial institutions (CRIF). Since 2018 the Group has also entered the capital of Workinvoice developing the first real industrial partnership in fintech in Italy.
Together with them we developed this new idea, very focused on time-to-market as up to 4 months ago the Superecobonus did not even exist. For fiscal know-how we involved PWC as technical advisor.

With this platform a new market opens up, how do you expect it to evolve in the future?

The short-term objective is to give liquidity to the bonus provided by the Relaunch Decree. The possibility to monetize it quickly becomes a kind of “incentive to the incentive“. Afterwards we may see a financialisation of the marketplace when asset managers and financial institutions enter the marketplace, also keeping in mind the role of market makers. This is only the first asset that can be exchanged on the marketplace: others will follow. A new freely investable asset class will be created, as we have already done for trade receivables represented by invoices.

What are the benefits of this initiative for the end user?

On the marketplace operate companies and banks that have an interest in monetizing the credits on one side and on the other side companies that want to acquire the credits to offset the tax burden on all taxes paid through the F24 form (including withholding taxes on employee income).
For both sides of the market these are the main advantages and differences compared to off-market transactions:

• Continuous availability of tax credits: Users of the platform will be able to assess the possibility of buying and/or selling tax credits at any time.
• Advanced exchange mechanism: Thanks to its experience in the field of trade receivables, Workinvoice has an in-depth knowledge of transaction management mechanisms.
• Process compliance and certainty of credit: If the assignee of the credit has contributed to the violation of tax regulations, he is jointly and severally liable for the tax and sanctions shall be applied against him. It is therefore essential to demonstrate good faith, a circumstance that is difficult to decline in an absolutely new context such as that of the Superbonus. Thanks to the participation of PwC in the project for the creation of the platform, a set of procedures and documents to be kept to meet the need to demonstrate good faith has been prepared.
• Economic efficiency: The platform is based on a matching mechanism between supply and demand that eliminates potential market inefficiencies and lowers the commission level of the service (also thanks to the digitization of the end to end process).
• Speed: The entire process of buying and selling and online compliance checks guarantees shorter timescales compared to the most common offline processes. This will allow the assignees to also cover also the portion of taxes that cannot be estimated at the beginning of the year and for which the time window between the identification of the tax debt and the date of payment is narrower.

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Bitandcoffee is the new digital personal and company accounting solution for the next era of easy tax and innovative banking PSD2 compliant. This startup has recently closed an deal with Unione Artigiani, managing to bring tradition and innovation together. Marco Frigerio, co founder, tells what it is all about.

What is the agreement between BitandCoffee and Unione Artigiani?

The agreement aims to cover an emerging need from the world of small and micro enterprises (official data from the Chambers of Commerce estimate that more than 95% of the Italian productive system) for innovative digital services. The agreement is a push towards innovation because it will provide specific services to members, which for the city of Milan alone,exceeds 10,000 units.
Thanks to the digitalization of services we will be able to provide all accounting and tax services to a large user base starting from 29 euros per month with additional support for the opening of the VAT number for all new activities both innovative and traditional.

How challenging was it to combine tradition and technology, both on a technical level and in terms of mindset?

As our slogans say, “Unione Artigiani and Bit&Coffee together to enhance your business” and “History and future meet to offer you the best service”. This is certainly the key point of the challenge. The managers of the association and all those in charge have shown a suitable prudence towards our solution but, after an in-depth study phase, they fully supported the idea, boosting and encouraging the adoption of innovative solutions both towards the associates and within the organization itself.

What is the added value you provide to Unione Artigiani and the end customer?

BitandCoffee has always been a reality very much focused on concrete innovation. In fact, the agreement is not a mere declaration of intent but are all concrete and tangible services, also economically, just like all the accounting services offered and already available.
As requested by the executives of the Unione Artigiani we have already started to provide specific courses and dedicated support, in terms of both efficiency of organizational processes and tools, for example marketing with the realization of important technological synergies together with Google Ads.

Do you intend to carry out other projects like this one?

In the near future we hope to announce other important deals in the world of advanced tax services with some large organizations in the world of accountants and also with some innovative and well-known players in the banking world who find in BitAndCoffee a very concrete Fintech partner able to harmonize innovation with effective applicability. Moreover, Fintech District has put us in touch with some interesting companies with whom we would like to develop synergies in the insurance and credit world.

How is your business going and what other projects do you have in the pipeline?

BitandCoffee has now exceeded 10,000 users and the latest services released are multipliers and accelerators in adoption by new users. The genius invoice service, for instance, which self-composes invoices, even with small artificial intelligence logics.
As far as the new projects are concerned, we want to take advantage of the strong skills in terms of accounting and taxation connected with the whole banking and payment systems world. We are therefore creating an automatic accounting system with direct connection to their current accounts with PSD2 technology but the idea is to go beyond the concept of accountant and bank transforming them, as we say,in saas and focusing on Valued added services that generate real value for the end user. We are also considering some financial deals to open up to the capital market.

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