The race for e-invoice is on

Senior Advisor Knut Øyvind Granli

It appears that the race is on in Northern Europe to create the framework needed to introduce the use of e-invoice in the public sector. In addition, according to Senior Advisor Knut Øyvind Granli in the e-Procurement Secretariat under the Norwegian Ministry for Government Administration and Reforms, the eagerness to find out what is happening in the North is fast spreading southwards on the Continent. This applies in particular to Spain and the Netherlands. In the middle of February this year all the European countries will be invited to Brussels for a closer look at the efforts that the Northern Europeans are making. And Norway is there!

As part of a cooperative effort, the countries of Northern Europe have agreed on a common implementation of the eProcurement standard UBL 2.0. All European countries were invited to join the project at a workshop held in Brussels on 15 February 2007.

The public sectors of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Finland, with contribution from the United Kingdom, have formed a collaboration (website: www.nesubl.eu) in order to support domestic and cross-border electronic trade. Named NES (Northern European Subset), this collaboration aims to simplify the use of eProcurement for buyers and suppliers, especially among SMEs.

The participating countries have identified an urgent need for an open XML-based standard covering the entire procurement process from catalogue to invoice. A standard of this type, is essential to the ability to reap the benefits of a full electronic procurement cycle. According to the NES countries the open international eProcurement standard UBL 2.0 from OASIS is the standard that can best fulfil this at present.

The NES countries have therefore launched a northern European implementation of UBL 2.0 in order to create a common platform for eProcurement. Implementation guides, business rules and processes show how the participating countries plan to apply UBL. A description of the implementation has just been made available for public review and can be found at the NES website www.nesubl.eu. The plan is to publish the final versions of the documents in February 2007.

Development of NES is inspired by two years of active deployment in Denmark that legalized Iuse of UBL under the banner OIOXML. in November 2006 Denmark also published an implementation of UBL 2.0 called OIOUBL. Since efforts in NES and in Denmark have taken place in parallel, there is already alignment between OIOUBL and NES in the areas where they overlap. ERP-vendors in Denmark have already begun work to implement the standard in their systems and pilot testing has started.

The public sector in Iceland is planning to send its first invoice based on a NES implementation of UBL on 1 March 2007. Sweden has already implemented an invoice based on UBL. Electronic invoicing will be mandatory for Swedish Central Agencies from July 2008, and the provisions have just recently been published. According to the provisions it is mandatory for the Swedish public authorities to use the standard SFTI Basic Invoice Version 1.0 from 1 March this year.

Mr Granli points out that the development in Sweden is built upon the UBL-standard. The starting point for the Swedes is that their Svefaktura is based upon UBL 1.0. The authorities in Sweden have moved the starting date for using e-invoice up one year, to the summer of 2008. Our eastern neighbours are very eager to implement the e-invoice system, and this has motivated their commitment throughout the collaboration, states Mr Granli, who adds that what is taking place at present in Sweden, is completely in accordance with the aims and intention for the Northern European collaboration (NES).

NES’ activities appeal to other European countries as well. The Netherlands, Mr Granli reports, has signalized that it will send a delegation to the open part of the workshop that being arranged in connection with the next steering group meeting. The workshop will take place in Brussels, which is easy to reach for most of the interested European countries. Spain is also very interested, and representatives of the NES collaboration are looking forward to meeting with the Spanish authorities to discuss the standardization efforts with them. “We hope that even more countries will indicate their interest,” says Mr Granli, who points out that the efforts to coordinate the UBL-standard with the UN/CEFACT are well underway.

Denmark has produced a leaflet which provide information about the NES collaboration as well as the UBL-standardization, and includes an invitation to attend the abovementioned workshop in Brussels. The leaflet may be downloaded from nesubl.eu. Other documentation from the work is also available on that website.

A hearing

“Unlike the situation in Denmark, in Norway it has not been the public authorities who have been most impatient to deploy e-invoice,” he points out. “At home it has been the business sector that has paved the way and the open and business independent e2b-format is steadily gaining ground. This suits the public sector well, and is in our point of view a better alternative to the more business-oriented formats. We are pleased to note that major public players such as the Municipality of Oslo, the Norwegian Government Agency for Financial Management and the Armed Forces are about to employ this format.

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