Home > Cases > IDABC e-Invoicing and e-Ordering project for public procurement

IDABC e-Invoicing and e-Ordering project for public procurement

Acronym of the case:

e-PRIOR

Country of the case:

Belgium , EU Institutions

e-invoicing | e-ordering | e-procurement


Posting Date: 11 July 2008
Last Edited Date: 10 December 2009

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Author:

Pieter Breyne (PricewaterhouseCoopers)Belgium
Type of initiative
  • Project or service
Case Abstract

The IDABC e-Invoicing and e-Ordering project started in the summer of 2007 as a joint initiative from the DG Internal Market and Services (DG MARKT) and the DG for Information Technology (DIGIT), under the IDABC working programme. The overall project objectives are twofold: a first objective is to contribute to the use of electronic invoicing in the public sector in line with the objectives of the i2010 e-Government action plan and the e-Procurement action plan. A second objective is to contribute to the establishment of the European Electronic Invoicing Framework (EEI), which is under the responsibility of the Expert Group on e-Invoicing.

On the one hand, business requirements for e-Invoicing in a public procurement context and cross-border environment have been gathered. 

On the other hand, a pilot project has been launched to setup an e-Invoicing and e-Ordering infrastructure between the DIGIT and a number of suppliers. The acronym of this infrastructure is e-PRIOR: electronic PRocurement, Invoicing and ORdering; the aim is to give full priority to electronic documents...

Description of the case
Start date - End date
June 2007 (Ongoing)
Date operational
January 2009
Target Users
Administrative | Business (industry) | Business (SME)
Target Users Description

The target group of this pilot project is:

- suppliers, receiving e-Orders and sending e-Invoices (large, medium and small suppliers), starting with a handful of suppliers

- Directorate General's of the European Commission, starting with the Directorate General for Information Technology (DIGIT)

- EU Member States that can learn and leverage from this real-life pilot experience

- Other e-Invoicing and standardization initiatives, such as CEN and PEPPOL

Scope
International
Status
Pilot
Language(s)
English
Policy Context and Legal Framework

e-Invoicing Directive 2001/115/EC, now incorporated in the VAT Directive 2006/112/EC

See also

http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/vat/traders/invoicing_rules/index_en.htm

http://www.pwc.com/be/en/publications/study-on-the-invoicing-directive.jhtml

Project Size and Implementation
Type of initiative
IT infrastructures and products
Overall Implementation approach
Public administration
Technology choice
Mainly (or only) open standards
Funding source
Public funding EU
Project size
Implementation: Not applicable/not available
Implementation and Management Approach

The approach is build around four major phases:

Phase 1Inventory of Business Requirements for e-InvoicingQ3/2007Q1/2008
Global Implementation Plan and Feasibility Study e-Invoicing Q4/2007Q1/2008
Development of Prototype "e-PRIOR" - Basic InvoiceQ2/2008Q4/2008
Phase 2Development of Invoice with DisputeQ4/2008Q2/2009
e-Invoicing pilotQ1/2009Q2/2009
Development of e-OrderingQ3/2009Q4/2009
Phase 3Feasibility Study e-CataloguesQ2/2009Q3/2009
Development e-CataloguesQ3/2009Q2/2010
Phase 4Open e-PRIOR and PEPPOL ConnectorQ2/2009Q3/2010

 

Technology solution

The solution developed within the European Commission is based on an Enterprise Service Bus. The name of this infrastructure is called e-PRIOR, an acronym for electronic PRocurement, Invoicing and Ordering. This solution will allow suppliers using web services for uploading and downloading XML messages: catalogues, orders, invoices, disputes, credit notes, etc.

The standard for formats and business processes is currently based on CEN/BII specifications (see www.cenbii.eu), based on UBL 2.0.

An open-source version is currently being developed, using JBoss Application Server, jBPM as workflow engine and Spring Integration as ESB. This open-source version is called Open e-PRIOR and will be shared with EU Member States to set up their own e-Invoicing infrastructure. One important element of Open e-PRIOR is a connector with PEPPOL.

Impact, innovation and results
Impact

The main purpose of the project is to gain-real life experience with e-Invoicing at the European Commission, and share the lessons learnt and re-usable components. Ultimately, the goal is to help stimulate the adoption of e-Invoicing in Europe.

Today (28/10/2009), we support e-Invoicing, including disputes and credit notes (the CEN/BII profile "Invoice with Dispute"). A first pilot was run in spring 2009 and conformance tests are being finalized now, allowing a number of suppliers to go into production very soon.

The team will start developing e-Ordering and e-Catalogue functionality and is also working on an open-source version which includes a connector to the PEPPOL infrastructure.

Track record of sharing

The Analysis of Business Requirements for eInvoicing in a Public Procurement Context is available at http://www.epractice.eu/en/library/288906

The demo movie of the prototype ("Basic Invoice") is available on YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azLeZIorrDs&fmt=18

The demo movie of e-PRIOR including "Invoice with Dispute" supporting e-Invoicing, disputes and credit notes is available on http://www.epractice.eu/en/tv/290845

The e-Catalogue Feasibility Study: http://www.epractice.eu/en/library/297017

A lot of information has been shared with PEPPOL and the cooperation with PEPPOL has now been formalised through the development of Open e-PRIOR and the PEPPOL Connector, see http://www.peppol.eu/Download/presentations/pan-european-eprocurement-with-peppol/20091021-peppol-conference-7-eprior-joao

Project results have been presented to the EC Expert Group on e-Invoicing, see http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/payments/einvoicing/index_en.htm

The project has been shared with other initiatives, such as the IDABC e-Procurement Expert Group, CEN e-Invoicing2 and UBL International

Lessons learnt

A first pilot exercise was run with a handful of suppliers, between February and April 2009. The pilot included the following suppliers and service providers:

- BT through B2Boost

- Systemat through Advalvas

- Dell through Inovis

- Belgacom, Electrabel and Siemens through Certipost

The following lessons learnt or conclusions were identified

  1. e-PRIOR is a sound infrastructure for e-Invoicing at the Commission; this was one of the main goals of this particular pilot exercise.
  2. A lot of time is required to sign the Interchange Agreement: legal departments must be involved, it is still a paper-based process, ... During the pilot, a Simplified Interchange Agreement was drafted, clarifying that the paper invoice is still the legal invoice and the e-Invoice is only for "testing" purposes. Once we go into production with a supplier, a final Interchange Agreement needs to be signed, where the e-Invoice is the legal and only invoice.
  3. A formal Kick-Off meeting is relevant: It certainly helps setting the expectations towards the suppliers.
  4. Suppliers seemed not to know or find their own Global Location Number (GLN from GS1). All the suppliers had one, but often, the e-PRIOR support team had to look them up. We consider the VAT number as alternative party identification number.
  5. Priorities of a supplier have an impact on the pilot timing and results: some suppliers were much faster or more pro-active than others, often depending on their own priorities.
  6. The internal customer must be involved: for approval of semantic mapping, of scenarios and of business rules.
  7. The number of support calls decreases with a good understanding of the Interface Control Document (ICD, available on CIRCA): technical specifications are described in the ICD, but we often received questions where the answer was already in the ICD. We tried to improve our specifications by adding FAQs.
  8. The mapping of the suppliers’ data format to the UBL format was relatively easy.
  9. The environment of the Supplier or third party service provider can have an impact on the pilot progress.

 See also http://www.peppol.eu/Download/public-procurement-for-the-future-conference/plenum-20th-may-2009-didier-thunus

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07 December 2009 | 1 reply
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