We all remember how delighted we were when the newborn Google was praised as a "database of intentions" which it of course was and is - on a scale that we could not imagine then. With Facebook now having 510 million visits a day! by 1,5 bn signed up, Whats Up at 0,9bn, Instagram at 0,4bn, Twitter at 0,3bn and any number of Tripadvisors and even local retailers joining the game (+ getting also the location) immense masses of information is being combined and thrown back to you as commercial messages. I am sure that most of us have asked the question: "How could they know".

Should we be worried? I do not quite see why - but in any case it is very difficult to avoid, unless you choose to stay out of the Net altogether. In that case you do not show solidarity with those consumers who want to stop paying for meaningless and often annoying mass marketing - costing for the media part some 5-600bn $ a year.

So we should be grateful. Especially as we are now moving into a new phase of structured big data in the payment area.  The Finvoice standard created already over 10 years ago has been automating not only payments but increasingly also accounting. It should be realised in all similar excercises that accountants must have row specific information to do their automation job - and that is exactly what Finvoice has delivered.

The big remaining issue has been card and cash payments. You cannot do without the paper receipt (or a picture of it - that can of course be rather intelligently scanned) as the total amount can contain several VATrates and both investment goods and stationary. Now we have successfully tested the new way: Card terminals delivered the receipt in the same Finvoice format to accounting (including EAN-codes). Also cash payment receipts can deliver the same. 

This is of course a huge step forward and hard work with launching and improving the e-invoice standard created the stepping stone. It has to be assumed that other standards will be used in the same way - and in an ideal world start converging.

I - "Mr Same Guy" have two roles. In my entreprenaur - job role - I need automated accounting, cash flow estimates and automated VAT reporting. We are focusing on this now. It should not come as surprise that I - in my private role - also need accounting, cash flow estimates and want to see where my money is going. It will be interesting see which of my roles will get served first.

In this enviroment it will be possible to collect all the rows of card, cash and invoice based purchases into well protected My Data, make interesting anonymized big data out of it and also expand open data. When this - what did happen - meets the database of intentions - huge value will be created.