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European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA)
News article24 May 2022European Health and Digital Executive Agency

eInvoicing: a digital solution supported by the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Telecom programme

eInvoicing

The disruption caused by COVID-19 accelerated the digital transition and the provision of digital services. Invoicing was significantly impacted, and electronic invoices, which are issued, transmitted and received in an electronic format, have become mainstream.

The European Commission has been supporting the uptake and accelerating the use of eInvoicing platform in the framework of Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Telecom programme since 2015.

What is eInvoicing?

eInvoicing is a digital solution that enables public sector contractors and companies to receive and process electronic invoices, and it’s based on the European standard on eInvoicing for the semantic elements of a core eInvoice (EN 16931).

The CEF eInvoicing building block aims at promoting the uptake and accelerating the use of eInvoicing in respect of the European standard, amongst both public and private entities established in the EU, as well as in participating EEA countries.

The eInvoicing building block supports public administrations in complying with EU eInvoicing legislation, and helps solution providers adapt their services accordingly. Therefore, eInvoicing foresees Business to Government (B2G) transactions, but can also be used to enable Government to Government (G2G) transactions.

Business to Business (B2B), Government to Citizen (G2C) or Business to Consumer (B2C) are not addressed in the context of the eInvoicing building block.

What are the benefits of eInvoicing?

  • Cost reduction: being an automated invoicing tool, eInvoicing reduces processing costs and operational services.
  • Faster payment: by removing the need of manually reading and entering information, eInvoicing lessens administrative burdens and time-to-payment for individual invoices.
  • Boosting B2G eProcurement: eInvoicing helps companies manage their contracts in any EU country, making public procurement businesses more appealing for everyone.
  • Facilitating cross-border trade: the timely and automatic processing of companies’ invoices in the EU facilitates cross-border trade operations between countries.

Meet the projects

During the eInvoicing journey, two projects were successfully completed:

  • eInvoicing Boost for Croatia – eIBC: eIBC achieved its objective to upgrade the existing EN compliant Croatian eInvoicing platform (Exchange hub - eRačun) with advanced functionalities for end-users to send/receive eInvoices and for reporting/monitoring purposes within the Ministry. The new functionalities facilitate the integration of the eInvoicing Exchange platform with internet banking system in order to enable 30,000 private sector users to gain access to e-invoicing services according to EN standard. In particular, the Privredna banka Zagreb - joint stock company (PBZ) –  adopted EN. They improved their internet banking system with e-invoicing processes harmonized with EN, being able to offer all their clients simple and easy uptake of EN and send e-invoices to public administration using familiar interfaces of internet banking. The project also developed innovative solutions in order to speed up the uptake of electronic invoice exchange between private sector and public administration, by developing reporting and monitoring functionalities.
  • Readiness of Slovenian E-Invoicing 2: the project achieved its objectives mainly to upgrade the eInvoicing/e-Procurement process from order to payment and to establish monitoring and control of the procurement process. It built on an existing eInvoicing solution compliant with EN and existing infrastructure (Exchange hub), which was previously funded under CEF(Action 2016-SI-IA-0103). It successfully contributed to the automation of the full process from the order to the payment using EN compliant standardized documents (for ePurchase order, eOrder response and eDespatch advice). They did so by upgrading the respective applications, and facilitating the preparation of advanced statistical analysis and business intelligence analytics of received and issued eInvoices, real-time monitoring and smart eInvoicing tools. Finally, the project carried out awareness, training and dissemination activities amongst the members of the Slovenian National Forum, stakeholders and end users of the developed tools. More information is available on this video demo of the project.

Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Telecom

The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Telecom programme is a key EU instrument to facilitate cross-border interaction between public administrations, businesses and citizens, by deploying digital service infrastructures (DSIs) and broadband networks.

Supported projects contribute to the creation of a European ecosystem of interoperable and interconnected digital services that sustain the Digital Single Market.

Useful Links

CEF Telecom Programme (2014-2020)

CEF Telecom Brochure (November 2020)

Details

Publication date
24 May 2022
Author
European Health and Digital Executive Agency
Programme Sector
Digital
Programme
Connecting Europe Facility 1
Tags
Digital technologyDigital transformationEUFunded