Brisk invoicing
But, eventually everybody is going to get in it, so I believe the sooner you do it, the better it is for you. It is not a train you are going to miss, if you don’t climb onboard now. Leave the challenges for the industry professionals to solve and start gaining the benefits that the companies who have already switched to electronic invoices are already enjoying. We need to be proactive to overcome this challenge in Europe as well.ĭon’t let these challenges I mentioned distract you – you shouldn’t wait any longer. These small fractions might hinder the single European market and the seamless interoperability. While many of the obstacles to interoperability are being removed, there is one development in the EU market that I am worried about – the many country-specific or industry-vertical rules that the public sector wants to impose locally on the e-invoices in order to fight the black economy, for instance. The negotiations are ongoing – we’ll have to wait and see how it turns out. If the public authorities need to be able to receive all of these, the burden might prove be too heavy for them, making the implementation too expensive and thus hindering the adoption. At present, the European norm includes multiple syntaxes, meaning the technical languages of the e-invoices. Although, I share the concerns that EESPA and OpenPeppol association voiced together about the implementation. It will further remove obstacles from cross-border electronic procurement and trade. It takes away a lot of the cumbersomeness of the closed networks and enables an easy step into the common exchangeability.Īnd thirdly, the new EU directives obligate public sector authorities to receive electronic invoices by the end of the year 2018. The agreement predefines the legal and technical requirements for the e-invoices, so that the service providers only need to comply with a couple of business rules. The agreement is being piloted among EESPA members during the end of this year. Peppol’s original aim was to simplify electronic procurement processes in B2G trade, but the OpenPeppol association is now promoting the use of the created standards in B2B trade as well.Īnother important step towards common interoperability is the Multilateral Interoperability Framework Agreement, MIFA, that EESPA is about to launch. Why? As an open, many-to-many network it helps to solve the interoperability, making it easy for any company, regardless of size, industry or location, to join e-invoicing. As I said in my previous blog, I believe Peppol will be the game changer in European e-invoicing. With our long experience and exceptionally strong foothold in the Nordics – the region that has been and still is the forerunner in e-invoicing – we at OpusCapita are able to actively participate and contribute to the development.įirstly, the Peppol network (Pan-European Procurement Online) is quickly expanding in Europe. But I’m already looking forward to an even more substantial growth that I believe is just around the corner.Ĭurrently, there are many developments in motion pushing the progress further. It is a brisk growth, and considering that the EESPA members handle over half of all the electronic invoices in Europe, it is fair to state that e-invoicing is in general in a strong tailwind in Europe. Compared to the volumes of the previous year, the figure shows a significant increase of 27% in total in B2B, B2G and B2C e-invoices. Recently, the European E-invoicing Service Providers Association EESPA reported that over 1,25 billion electronic invoices were processed and delivered by its members last year.