SERES Blog English

As in many other countries in Europe, Austria has been promoting B2G eInvoicing for several years. Electronic invoicing was regulated as far back as 2012, when the Austrian Bundesministerium Finanzen published its Austrian ICT Consolidation Act (ICTKonG). Section 5 of that Act established the requirement to use electronic invoicing in the country’s public procurement: a fact which included the national and international suppliers working with the country's federal authorities.

With the aim of achieving uniformity in the services provided to the public and improving their efficiency and effectiveness, the Spanish government decided to promote the use of eInvoicing in the country using a model which pushed all of the public administrations towards the digital transformation.

Portugal and its Autoridade Tributária e Aduaneira, AT, have been working on implementing eInvoicing in the country for many years as part of their move towards an eProcurement strategy. The entry into force in 2004 of the Decreto-Lei no. 256/2003, of 21 October 2003 laid the foundations for eInvoicing in Portugal; establishing the technical conditions for the sending, processing, receiving and archiving e-invoices, as well as recommending their use in the country's public administrations.

The implementation of eInvoicing in France has been work in progress for several years. In 2014, the French Ministry for the Economy and Finance published Ordinance No. 2014-697 of 26 June 2014 for the development of eInvoicing, and with this it was established that eInvoicing had to be used for French public procurement. In other words, the companies issuing invoices to French public administrations must issue electronic invoices, and the French public administrations must receive and accept them electronically as well.

The Italian Council of Ministers, at the proposal of the President Giuseppe Conte and the Minister of Economy and Finance, Giovanni Tria, in consultation with the Minister of Economic Development, Luigi Di Maio and the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Toninelli Danilo, approved on 27 June 2018 a decree-law that introduces some urgent provisions on the obligations for electronic invoicing in Italy for companies in the fuel sector.

Electronic Document Interchange, EDI, is turning into an essential solution for companies as it generates many benefits, improves competitiveness and boosts the efficiency of businesses.

The standard format used in electronic data interchange (EDI) for administration, commerce and transport is defined by the United Nations and is known as UN/EDIFACT. It consists of a set of internationally agreed standards, directories, and guidelines for the electronic interchange of structured data, between independent computerised information systems.

Starting to use EDI means adapting your procedures and programs in areas such as invoicing, warehousing and accounting, to a new language and coding that most of the ERPs on the market do not cover. Why? The main reason is that it is a type of relationship that takes into account both the sender and receiver, while ERPs usually focus only and exclusively on organising the customer and not so much on the relationship between that customer and their commercial partners - customers and suppliers.

The use of electronic data interchange is common in many industries, but it has penetrated the following sectors more thoroughly: Retail (supermarkets, department stores, distributors, etc.), Automotive (car or car part manufacturers, dealerships, etc.), Healthcare (hospitals, health centres, clinics, chemists, etc.), and Transport.

1 252 million electronic invoices were processed and delivered in 2015 by members of the European E-Invoicing Service Providers Association (EESPA), based on a set of survey results completed in July 2016. This represented a significant growth of 27 per cent over 2014 volumes of 985 million.