E-invoicing Expert Group – A few potatoes to go with the meat
The European Union E-invoicing Expert Group has garnered a lot of attention with its efforts to harmonize e-invoicing practices amongst the industry’s most prominent players. Now the group has published the final report for its Phase 2 activities. It’s a lengthy report, a full 111 pages of dense formulations. Having spent a considerable amount of time reading it, I thought I’d save you the trouble by writing a summary.
The report tried to touch on just about every e-invoicing issue, leaving the focal message rather unclear for the reader. Indeed, skimming the table of contents brought to mind that Fats Waller song that says “all that meat and no potatoes, just ain’t right.” So let’s add the potatoes.
The report lists several recommendations / issues for its future work. They are:
1. The need to focus on making e-invoicing a mass-market application for the small-to-medium sized enterprise market.
2. The need to provide clarity with respect to national legislation regarding e-invoicing.
3. The call for an interconnected “e-invoicing ecosystem” where multiple e-invoice operators and other service providers are to interoperate and route traffic between each other – similar to how it’s done in mobile phone communications
4. The suggestion to begin the adoption of a single e-invoice content standard (UNCEFACT Cross-industry invoice) to provide a level playing field for all parties relying on the so-called e-invoice data file for automated invoice generation and processing.
5. The call for an EU-level organization or “organizational process” to implement the suggested changes, and the call for a set of campaigns to disseminate those key messages in order to enable a transition from the current e-invoicing landscape into the level playing field mentioned above.
One additional nugget in the report is the call to abandon the current practice of having e-invoices signed with a qualified digital signature in favor of an “equal treatment of e-invoices with respect to the handling of paper invoices”. (See R 2.1 and R 2.2 in the report and Page 30.)
At Basware we welcome these recommendations. Already, today our offering is compatible with the statements in the TOC report.
However convergence to a single e-invoice data file format remains a long-term dream. Basware takes a more realistic stance in the sense that we are accommodating both the senders’ as well as the recipients’ demands by providing a controlled conversion process enabling each customer to use their preferred format.
Digital signing of e-invoices can be perceived as a nuisance or as a blessing for proving that files have not been manipulated. At Basware we take a neutral stance. We have both experience in countries where digital signing is a must and in others where there is a preference for reliance on other IT-controls to ensure authentication and e-invoice integrity.
Overall, the report leaves me feeling that all the ingredients are on the table and just waiting for the right cook to come along and make a tasty and balanced meal out of it all.
If you feel like giving it a go, try these:
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/newsroom/cf/document.cfm?action=display&doc_id=5544 (Final report)
http://www.e-invoice-gateway.net/start/ (Portal page)
http://www.e-invoice-gateway.net/knowledgebase/countryrelated/ (Country-by-country comparison)
http://e-invoice.basware.com/
And have a look at their E-invoice Gateway website that enables you to do a brief country-by-country comparison of e-invoicing-related legislation. Though not yet comprehensive and clear enough for individual e-invoice sending or receiving parties, it is still a commendable effort. Go ahead and try it out.
