Big push towards e-invoicing adoption in Europe

The European Commission wants e-invoicing to be the main method for payment requests in Europe by 2020.

In a presentation ‘Reaping the benefits of electronic invoicing for Europe’, the commission outlined actions that aim to ease its adoption.  Vice President, Antonio Tajani, Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship said, “Revolutionising the way we pay bills, e-invoicing will boost the overall competitiveness of European companies, especially SMEs.”

As existing rules governing e-invoicing are not uniform across Europe (see our recent interview with Stefan Foryszewski for his views on regulations and e-invoicing), the potential benefits of e-invoicing are largely unexploited. The commission is therefore focusing its efforts on removing barriers to adoption and has prioritised four key areas:

1. Ensuring a consistent legal environment for e-invoicing
2. Getting SMEs onboard to achieve mass-market adoption
3. Creating an environment that encourages maximum reach between trading partners exchanging invoices
4. Promoting a common e-invoicing standard.

Specific actions include:

• A proposed revision of the e-signatures directive to provide cross-border recognition of secure e-authentication systems
• Two projects to help specific sectors agree on interoperable processes for the electronic exchange of data and documents along the supply chain
• The European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) should develop a code of practice, including consistent terminology and clearly defined roles and responsibilities for e-invoicing
• CEN should design implementation guidelines for a cross-industry invoice data model and work with international standards organisations
• Member states have been invited to establish national multi-stakeholder forums on e-invoicing by June 2011.