The regulation effectively removes restrictions that limited the use of e-invoices. Previously, issuing, sending and storing e-invoices was only possible through the use of electronic data interchange (EDI) or by using an qualified electronic signature. Just like in any other country, compliance with these rules proved to be expensive and, in practice, a restricting in the use of e-invoices.

Already in May 2010, Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court held that it was allowed to send an invoice as an attachment in an email. This e-invoice even after being printed by the receiver, could be treated as a paper invoice, allowing for VAT deduction.

This recent regulation affords businesses an opportunity to issue, send and store invoices in any electronic format. Just like current and upcoming EU legislation acceptance from the customer is still needed Even though this can be achieved either explicitly or implicitly and either in electronic format or in writing.

To send invoices electronically, two conditions must be satisfied:

* Authenticity of origin—certainty that the identity of the person supplying the goods or service, is the issuer of the invoice

* Integrity of content—invoice data has not been altered

The former requirements for a qualified electronic signature and to use EDI no longer apply; however, both methods are mentioned in the new guidance as examples of how to satisfy the required conditions for e-invoices. Sending an PDF invoice per e-mail is also permitted. As well as storing your invoices electronically.

Source: KPMG

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Poland no longer requires qualified signature or EDI with e-invoicing.

After the completion of the CEN/ISSS eInvoicing Phase I Workshop in 2006, a Phase II workshop was launched in 2007. Now, during the Open Meeting on June 18th 2009, the final deliverables of this Phase II will be presented to reach out for public comments and reviews.

CEN/ISSS e-Invoicing Phase II: five Working Groups

Five projects have gone under way, with Working Groups:

1.      An adoption programme for increased electronic invoicing in European business processes

2.      Compliance of electronic invoice implementations with Council Directive 2001/115/EC and the national legislation as regards electronic invoices;

3.      Cost effective authenticity and integrity of electronic invoices and related business documents regardless of formats and technologies;

4.      Implementation of compliant electronic invoice systems in using emerging technologies and business processes;

5.      A framework for the emerging network infrastructure of ‘invoice operators’ throughout Europe.
Resulting in several deliverables, the Working Groups and the entire CEN e-Invoicing Workshop aim to stimulate further standardisation in the domain of electronic invoicing in Europe. It should be noted that the activities are explicitly not directed towards standardisation of a document format such as UN/CEFACT or UBL.
What kind of deliverables can we expect?
So what kind of results can we expect at the Open Meeting on June 18th 2009? To get answer on that question we could take a look at the presentations performed during the Open Meeting in 2008.

In short – to be honest: as far as the EEI Platform can see- it is expected that at least the following deliverables will be presented:

-          The Draft Good Practice Guidelines (Working group 2 and 3)

-          E-invoice Gateway (Working group 1)

-          Review of CWA 15576 (Working group 4)

-          Review CWA 15582 (Working group 4)
NOTE: The EEI Platform has been chair of Working group 4 for some time. It resigned from this position due to a conflict of co-operation with one of the Workshop chairs and a difference of vision with regard to the expected deliverables and their content. The EEI Platform proposed to deliver:

-          A Common Body of Definitions

-          An Interaction Framework

-          An E-invoicing Innovation Guideline
Progress put into perspective
So what progress has been achieved during the last twelve months? The only way to find out is to go the CEN/ISSS e-Invoice Open Conference. But not before you had a chance to look the presentations from 2008. That way you could put the new information en statements into perspective:

2008 – Working Group 1
Raising awareness of electronic invoices

2008 – Working Group 2
Overview on compliance of electronic invoices

2008 – Working Group 2:
Compliance of electronic invoices

2008 – Working Group 2:
Legal and regulatory inhibitors

2008 – Working Group 3:
Cost effective means to guarantee authenticity & integrity

2008 – Working Group 4:
Emerging technologies and business processes

2008 – Working Group 5:
Interconnection of service providers

With the final deliverables, the CEN e-Invoicing Workshop has stimulated further standardization work in the domain of electronic invoices in Europe, with a view to supporting:
- the compliance of electronic invoice implementations to Council Directive 2001/115/EC and the national legislation as regards electronic invoices;
- the effective implementation of compliant electronic invoice systems in using emerging technologies and business processes, in business-to-business as well as in business-to-government scenarios; and
- the emerging network infrastructure of invoice operators throughout Europe.

The eInvoicing Workshop Phase II is mandated by the European Commission to provide advice on the European electronic invoice implementation process. With more than 60 companies actively participating, the Workshop has become the sounding board of the electronic invoice industry – comprising software companies, service providers, end-users as well as tax authorities (e.g. Spain, NL, UK, Italy, Romania).

CEN/ISSS conference “Electronic Invoices & Compliance”
JUNE 18th, 2009 10:00 – 17:00 CET
DIAMANT BUILDING
Boulevard Reyers 80, 1030 BRUSSELS, Belgium

The Open Conference is free of charge !
For participation, please register before 10 June at: http://www.cen.eu/isss/meetings

If you have any question about the registration, please contact:
Emmanuelle Ramaz, Workshop Assistant CEN,
Innovation & Business Development Department
e-mail: emmanuelle.ramaz@cen.eu
Tel + 32 2 550 08 13

Agenda

09:30 Arrival and registration
10:00 Welcome and introduction CEN Secretary General Stefan Engel-Flechsig & Anders Grangard (CEN/ISSS Workshop Co-Chairs),
10:15 Perspectives on e-Business (Welcome note by the European Commission, DG Enterprise)
10.30 Summary of the Phase II results: Stefan Engel-Flechsig
11.00 WG2: Overview on compliance of electronic invoices – Joost Kuipers
11.15 WG2: CEN Compliance Guidelines – Christiaan van der Valk
11.45 WG2: Legal and regulatory inhibitors – Tony Nisbett

12:15 Lunch break

13:15 WG : Cost effective means to guarantee authenticity & integrity – Johan Borendal & Nick Pope
14:00 WG 4: Emerging technologies and business processes – Anders Grangard & Adrian Mueller
14:45 WG 5: Interconnection of service providers – Ahti Allikas & Jari Salo

15.30 Coffee & tea

16.00 WG 1: Raising awareness of electronic invoices – Georg Lindsberger & Helmut Aschbacher
16:30 Final discussions and recommendations from the audience
17:00 Wrap-up, close of meeting & networking

For participation please register before 10 June at: http://www.cen.eu/isss/meetings

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: CEN/ISSS E-invoice final deliverables June 18th – What to expect?.

-          Enhanced adoption of electronic invoicing in business processes in Europe;

-          Compliance of electronic invoice implementations with Council Directive 2001/115/EC and Directive on the Common
   System of Value Added Tax (2006/112/EC) as well as Member States’ national legislation as regards electronic
   invoicing

-          Cost-effective authentication and integrity of electronic invoices regardless of formats and technologies

-          Effective implementation of compliant electronic invoice systems in using emerging technologies and business
   processes and

-          Emerging network infrastructure of invoice operators throughout Europe.

TG2 and TG3: The Draft Good Practice Guidelines

TG 2 (compliance of electronic invoice implementations) and TG 3 (cost effective authentication and integrity) decided to cooperate and created the Draft Good Practice Guidelines. The Draft Good Practice Guidelines identify two major obstacles when it comes to the regulatory aspects of e-invoicing adoption.

First, “businesses that implement electronic invoicing are often faced with thousands of technical and process implementation options along the way. In the absence of implementation-relevant rules emanating from tax administrations or standards bodies, the uncertainty surrounding these many choices creates a significant barrier to investment in electronic invoicing. As a result, for those vendors and users that choose to invest nevertheless, it is hard to make any value judgment as to how “compliant” their services and solutions are. Corporate e-invoicing users, Service Providers and solution vendors that are taking steps to develop and maintain VAT-compliant services naturally have a desire to have to a concrete yardstick against which to measure and with which to demonstrate their compliance.”

Second, nowadays “most tax administrations do not provide accreditation services or self-assessment programmes to assist e-invoicing users or their Service Providers to ascertain that e-invoicing systems are VAT-compliant. Tax administrations’ audit methodologies and tools are often developed based on the experiences of law enforcement and not widely propagated to businesses as compliance checklists.”

How it works

As stated above, the Draft Good Practice Guidelines seek to reduce some of the principal areas of uncertainty and resulting inefficiencies on the e-invoicing market with one single set of good practice Guidelines for both businesses and tax administrations.

It consists of two documents: one word document and one Excel sheet.

The Word document provides context to the Excel document and tries to explain how one should use the Excel. The Excel sheet identifies the main issues in question at each processing step during the life cycle of an electronic invoice for different invoicing methods (direct invoicing from Supplier to Buyer as well as Self-Billing) and provides detailed process guidance for a variety of implementation options including web publication, the use of various integrity and authenticity-enhancing methods and the retention of electronic invoices.

The Excel sheet takes into account:

-          who directs the e-invoicing process

-          whether an intermediate party is involved

-          the possibility of a self billing variant

-          the method being used to guarantee authenticity and integrity: EDI, digital signatures, other instruments

-          the predefined (business) process steps necessary to perform e-invoicing

Based on your choices in these variables, the Excel sheet should be able to present you:

-          the inherent tax risks that your organisation poses when initiating e-invoicing based on the choices made.

-          the tax requirements necessary or even obligatory needed to address the risks

-          the controls or solutions that should be in place to ensure the risks are avoided

Concluding remarks
The Draft Good Practice Guidelines are very promising, as they are intended to rule out uncertainty on e-invoicing form a legal/VAT/compliance perspective.But there are some downsides to this version of the Draft Good Practice Guidelines.

Hence the only two percepted barriers to full scale adoption of e-invoicing: standardisation and awareness, would remain.

First of all the Excel sheet does not, or at least not very easily, provide the results needed for an organisation get a sense of safety. It might be a good idea to create a database version that is much more accessible.

Second, this Draft Good Practice Guideline is still a concept. Or as the Word document states: “These Guidelines and Commentary are a work in progress and out for review. While every effort has been made to ensure consistency with legal requirements that apply to e-invoicing in the European Union, no guarantees of legal compliance or fitness for purpose are made by the drafters or CEN; any use of these documents is at the user’s own risk”.

Download the Draft Good Practice Guidelines (Word)
Download the Draft Good Practice Guidelines (Excel)

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Draft Good Practice Guidelines: how to comply with e-invoicing regulations?.

Common practice across Europe nevertheless shows that the penetration and adoption of electronic invoicing and invoice automation in Member States is relatively low. When it comes to European cross border e-invoicing, it is even lower.

EEI Platform
Nevertheless several initiatives in Europe on e-invoicing and invoice automation, it stands out that there is not a platform with a focus on sharing information, promoting members’ interests, building social networks and obtaining knowledge.

Mission
The mission of the EEI Platform is to accelerate the awareness, adoption and penetration of e-invoicing invoice automation and its related domains (payments, accounting, credit management, archiving, authenticity) across Europe. Creating benefits and opportunities for its visitors, members, partners and stakeholders.

Objectives
In achieving this mission, the EEI Platform aims at several objectives that distinguishes the EEI Platform from other initiatives. The mission and objectives are carried out using an activity and instruments framework. This activity framework is based on a S.M.A.R.T. approach: Specific, Measurable, Accurate, Realistic, Time based.

Benefits
Packed with functionalities and opportunities to generate as much benefits as possible for our members and partners.

                          Postal:        EEI Platform
Brunelsingel 122
6841 KB ARNHEM
The Netherlands 

 Step four:       PAY THE DIGITAL INVOICE

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Become a Founding Partner of the EEI Platform.

I was disappointed to find that one of the conclusions implies that electronic signature is seen as a barrier for further development of the electronic invoice, and a feature that some of the members of the expert group see as superfluous feature.

In my opinion, electronic documents need ways to reinforce security to allow to tell apart fake documents from authentic documents. Ths is generally true even for informative documents with less impact on companies results.

It is also true that electronic signature is not the only way to reinforce security regarding autenticity of documents. For example, a document can be assumed to be authentic if it is retrieved from a trusted source, even if it is not completed with an electronic signature. But then we must define what are the requirements of such “trusted sources” to keep that assumption.

On the other hand, both approaches, electronic signatures and reference or trusted sources (which in turn frecuently are based in electronic signature derived schemes) need more precise definition to avoid lack of interoperability, which, in my opinion is the real barrier for electronic invoice wide deployment.

Some common authenticity mechanisms are required both for electronic invoices (those that are born electronically from the beginning) and for invoices certified scanning (invoices digital copies that become equivalente to an original, after a security mechanism has been added to a common scanning).

This approach, “certified scanning”, has been initiated in Spain with high success.

Certified scanning is a process in which an electronic signature is applied to a image file while it is scanned from a document paper. This image is stored in a secured database and the main concepts and terms of the paper document are added as metadata to the contextual fields of the image file in the database.

Once a paper document is “certifiedly scanned” the digital copy becomes equivalente to an original, and the paper source can be destroyed. The new “electronic original” can then be used for auditing purposes.

For the companies that receive thousands of invoices, “certified scanning” adoption imply benefiting from most of the advantages of the electronic invoice without dealing with the slow adoption pace that their suppliers could show.

If we want to support “certified scanning” we need a common definition of the requirements for that conversion. And they should not be very different form the requirements for “electronic invoices” .

If we accept authenticity mechanisms not based in electronic signature, they should be common for both approaches. And if electronic signature is still to be used in the future as the authenticity mechanism of the electronic invoice, the broad options in variants should be reduced and clearly defined (in my opinion, the XL definition of CAdES -TS 101 733- or XAdES -TS 101 903- should be used, including both validation and timestamping, from the signer side).

Source: ePractice

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Future trends in electronic invoicing.

The study will produce a selection tool to generate scenarios for the organisation of the e-invoicing infrastructure. The selection tool will take account of such considerations as organisational aspects (whether the work is done in-house or outsourced), security (the authenticity and integrity of the invoice) and invoice validation and transformation.

The project will run for ten weeks, with the final report being presented to the Ministry in mid-August.

For more information: Bob.Hulsebosch@telin.nl or Paul.OudeLuttighuis@telin.nl

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Infrastructures for electronic invoicing in B2G transactions.