Tim McGrath, vice chair of OASIS UBL , explains in his recent post on UBL XML.org, that UBL is the clearest path towards a single common data format for XML business documents. Underneath is an impressum of his post (all credit go to Tim McGrath):

“The situation in Europe with regards to electronic invoicing is a useful example of the present confusion in eBusiness document standards.

This article will try to both explain the situation in Europe and also how UBL (the OASIS Universal Business Language) intends to satisfy European requirements. Without such an explanation, many of those implementing what they believe to be appropriate solutions will be misled into thinking they are standardizing, when in fact they aren’t.

In late 2010 the European Commission issued a communication aiming to ‘Promote a common e-invoicing standard’.  It stated:

Following the recommendations of the Expert Group, “the UN/CEFACT Cross-Industry Invoice (CII) v.2 should be adopted as the common reference semantic data model upon which future e-invoice content standard solutions are based”. It should be left to the market to utilise this data model and adapt it to specific business needs.

Unfortunately, the Commission have chosen to recommend a data model that is so big and complex that conformance does not ensure any consistency in what could be contained in an Invoice document. So the European standards organization, CEN, has been commissioned to create a meaningful subset, as well as a user guide, for how the data model should be used.  This CEN Message User Guideline project (MUG) is currently work-in-progress.

Meanwhile, UBL aims to ensure that the UBL Invoice both satisfies the requirements of the European Commission as well as those of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), the European integrated retail payments market.

The SEPA customer-to-bank electronic document formats (known as Payment Initiation or, without irony, pain messages) cover the ‘downstream’processing of invoice information for payment through the banking systems.  Like all XML financial industry standards, these are based on the ISO 20022 vocabulary.

The UBL Invoice is an ‘upstream’ document that must contain the information required by the banking system.  UBL 2.1 will provide a mapping of the UBL Invoice elements to the equivalent SEPA pain elements (there are an estimated 170 of these) so that applications can transform information in one format to the other. In a business sense, this means extracting payment information from an Invoice.

When the CEN MUG project finalizes its core invoice requirements, UBL will also map those to the UBL Invoice.  This should be straightforward, as the MUG will be similar to the existing CEN BII ‘core’ subset based on the UBL Invoice. Together these tasks will ensure UBL meets all requirements of eInvoice users in Europe.

In practice, this means that anyone using the UBL Invoice does not need to (and should not) consider changing to various flavours of UN/CEFACT or any other XML document standards – despite the misinformation being circulated by vested interest groups.  Indeed, the UBL Invoice is the only XML Invoice document standard that is sanctioned, stable, integrated within a suite of supply chain documents and is the nearest thing the world has to a purpose-built ebXML document format.

Significantly, UBL invoices have been used in some of the world’s most successful eInvoicing projects over the past 6 years– many within Europe.  It is unfortunate that the European Commission (itself a user of UBL for eInvoicing) is not capitalizing on this advantage in its policies.

This paradox exemplifies the confusion about standards and emphasizes that if the eInvoice community wants to find a clear path towards a single common standard format for XML business documents (such as eInvoices), then UBL is the most practical base to build upon.

Fortunately, history tells us that ultimately pragmatism will prevail and market requirements for eInvoice document standards will be met by the most suitable solution – is this case the one that exists and works.  Meanwhile we will have to bear with the noise and distraction of false prophets.  UBL can bear it if you can!

Source:  UBL.XML.org

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Why consider CII or SEPA with the advent of UBL 2.1?.

The invoice is an important document exchanged in e-business transactions between trading partners. Its primary function is a request for payment from the customer to the supplier. The invoice is also an important accounting document and also has potential trade law implications for both trading partners.
Additionally, in the member states of the European Union, the invoice is the key document for VAT declaration and reclamation, for statistics declaration, and to support export and import declaration in respect of trade with other countries.

Started as an initiative by CEN/ISSS Work shop eBES, the European Expert Group 1 (EEG1) – Supply Chain & e-Procurement developed the Cross Industry Invoice in 2004. The first version of the Cross Industry Invoice has been compiled with contributions and submissions from: EUROFER, GS1, CIDX, EDIFICE, AIAG/ODETTE/JAMA, GHX, UK e-Government, UK HM Customs & Excise, and EDS.

In the end of the year 2008 version 2.0 of this document was published. Compared to version 1.0 a series of changes regarding the requirements and the structure were introduced. Basis for the enhancement of requirements were contributions from TBG1 members such as GS1, UBL, EDIFrance, US Department of Defense, and others.

The objective of this document is to standardize the business processes regarding (e-) in the supply chain.

Read the entire document:

Source: www.uncefactforum.org

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: New version of Cross Industry Invoice (CII).

Here you are able to view the entire data overview per country:
Source: Eurostat

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Growing internet access and use in the EU27 in 2008.

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: European Commission: webpage on e-invoicing.

Further information:
OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL) TC
Download
Index of /ubl/os-UBL-2.0-update/mod/

Source: www.epractice.eu

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: First release of OASIS UBL 2.0 IDD begins public review.

Read the entire article here:

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: CEN / Adobe: Intelligent PDF and XML for legally valid electronic invoicing.

The prototype currently supports:
- the sending of an XML invoice through secured web services;
- the sending of a separate attachment;
- the sending of a status request message, which returns the status of the invoice.

User access, logging and a business document viewer have also been implemented.
The prototype was demonstrated to the IDABC programme’s Technical Working Group and formally endorsed by the ‘Pan-European eGovernment Services Committee’ (PEGSCO) which is the IDABC programme’s management committee.
 
The next project phase includes:
- Running a real-life pilot with a number of existing IT and telecom suppliers;
- Organising a post-pilot workshop to share the lessons learnt of the pilot;
- Developing additional use cases, including disputes and credit notes;
- Analysing the eOrdering process.

This phase should be completed before the summer holiday of 2009. During the final phase, the pilot will be extended with the additional use cases whilst the eOrdering process is being developed.

Final step
As a final step, all project deliverables will be packaged for dissemination. Collaboration with other eInvoicing and standardization initiatives is seen as very important, and contributions have been made to:

- The Expert Group on eInvoicing
- The PEPPOL project
- The CEN/BII workshop, where the IDABC eInvoicing and eOrdering project team is now even chairing the subgroup working on the usage of code tables.

A major contribution has been made towards the redefinition of the profiles, making them modular and complementary, resulting in decoupling the profiles from any message standard like UBL or UN/CEFACT.
 
Where applicable or possible, concepts and tools have been re-used from Member States, such as the NES/UBL XML formats and profiles, stylesheets and validator tools. Member States will equally be able to re-use deliverables and results from this project, such as XML definitions, stylesheets, approaches or concepts, programming code and architecture documents.

Further information:
e-PRIOR case in ePractice IDABC website
eProcurement news & good practice
e-PRIOR demo on You Tube

source: www.epractice.eu

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: EU: Prototype IDABC eInvoicing and eOrdering project ready.

The initiative is intended to bring the citizens of rural areas closer to all three levels of Government in Spain by enabling them to benefit from the approximately 900 central, regional and local public services available on the eGovernment portal ‘060.es’.

Named ‘Telecentres training and revitalization plan’, the €2 million project relies on the network of Red.es Telecentres; those free Internet access points located across Spain’s rural areas. Over 500 Telecentres trainers will, within 1 500 Telecentres, instruct the population on how to perform operations via the eGovernment portal and to obtain information by electronic means.

In this light, printed and audiovisual information material have been designed in a clear language, with practical examples of the citizens’ daily life aspects, so as to demonstrate the advantages of the portal. In addition, distinct multimedia information packs are being conceived following the specific profiles (youngsters, women, seniors, immigrants, etc) structuring the portal. This material will include information on each target group’s most used services, as well as on the use of the national eID card.

Miguel Sebastián, Minister for Industry, Tourism and Trade stressed that following the successful deployment of Telecentres, his department will concentrate its efforts on the “valorisation of the infrastructure” by adding “services associated to the Telecentres”. He informed that the launch of the ‘Telecentres training and revitalisation plan’ is the first measure in this direction, and that it is based on the Training axis of the Avanza2 programme.

The plan has already started being implemented in 304 Telecentres in the regions of Andalusia and Asturias, with 150 dedicated trainers involved. Later on, the plan will focus on the regions of Castile and León, the Canary Islands and Murcia, and then on Galicia, the Valencian Community, Castile-La Mancha and Extremadura.

Source: Epractice.eu

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Promoting eServices in rural areas in Spain.

TIE Holding N.V. (“TIE”) hereby announces that it has entered into a tentative agreement to acquire MamboFive B.V., an e-Business software company based in The Netherlands. The transaction completes TIE’s portfolio of the TIE Kinetix e-Business products and solutions and creates further business development opportunities for up-selling TIE Kinetix to the expanded customer base.

This acquisition fits well into TIE’s strategy of acquiring businesses that strengthen TIE’s bottom line, whilst providing expansion of the product and service potential. The acquisition is expected to contribute to TIE’s revenue and profitability.

Following the completion of the financial, technical en legal due diligence, and the agreement for the purchase of 51% of the shares, TIE shall pay a purchase price amounting to EUR 200,000. The purchase price for the first 51% of the shares also contains a short term 5% annual interest bearing loan amounting to EUR 300,000. On March 1, 2009, TIE requires to pay the loan and interest to the shareholders of MamboFive.

Regarding an additional 24,5% of the shares, TIE receives an option to buy them per April 1, 2009 for a purchase price of EUR 450,000. In order to acquire the final 24,5% of the shares, TIE receives an option to buy them for a purchase price of EUR 450,000. In case TIE determines to exercise the options, TIE will issue convertible bonds amounting to the purchase price. Each convertible bond has a notional term of five years and a lock-up amounting to 1 year. The convertible bonds are non-interest bearing and the conversion rate of each bond will be based upon the average closing rate of the last 4 days prior to the closing date or exercise date as well as the closing date or exercise date, always with a minimum of EUR 0.10.

The total purchase price for the acquisition of all shares of MamboFive therefore amounts to EUR 1.4m. The company has decided to split the transaction in order to anticipate on the current circumstances in the financial markets, and therefore provides itself with multiple decision moments to evaluate the financial market status at that moment. TIE expects to finalize the agreement after the publication of the annual results, which is planned on November 26, 2008.

With the addition of MamboFive, TIE will be able to deliver its customers a complete state-of-the-art TIE Kinetix e-Business solution, including a web shop. Our customers can now connect and integrate with their trading partners in the supply chain in every possible way, whether it’s the support of online orientation for their customers, online selling or online fullfillment. Therefore they can keep their business virtual as long as possible and save valuable time and money and even grow their revenue.

TIE will also be able to deliver its Business-to-Business integration know-how and solutions to the customers of MamboFive, who are predominantly in the telecom industry. Customers of MamboFive are KPN, HI, Debitel, AH Mobiel, Vodafone and e-tailers such as Elders Websales and Slimshops.

“Combining with TIE provides a significant opportunity to further accelerate our combined business”, said Frank van Doorn, Director of MamboFive. “We have been looking for possibilities to provide our clients additional services and complete solutions. We are very pleased to be able to integrate our MamboFive solutions in the TIE Kinetix platform. This will enable us to realize substantial growth in new markets and to extend the business with our existing clients”.

“Web shops and e-business solutions are the final step in our vision of offering a full range of e-business solutions to our customers”, says Jan Sundelin, CEO of TIE. “MamboFive delivers a full multi-channel concept, including shop-in-shop. With the acquisition of MamboFive we have a very powerful solution for our clients in doing their business online via a web shop.”

About MamboFive
MamboFive delivers and implements e-business solutions based on her standard MamboFive Commerce Suite (MCS), which is suitable for B2B and B2C solutions.
MCS is a fully ‘Web Enabled ERP’ for the internet entrepreneur. New technologies such as e-procurement, web shops, catalogue management and web services can be implemented upon the existing investments in financial and logistic systems.

The company was established in 2000 and is headquartered in Utrecht, in the center of the Netherlands. It developed the MamboFive Commerce Suite especially for midsize and large enterprises who can implement the software package quickly without high investments. MamboFive’s main focus is the high end corporate retail segment. The client reference list comprises strong corporate brands as KPN, HI, Debitel, Vodafone, Fujitsu-Siemens, SimYo Belgium, Simac ICT and Elders Websales (GSM.nl).
MamboFive also has a strong position in the mid segment with runner up companies and niche players who require state-of-art solutions for their e-businesses.

Profile TIE
Master Data Management Software Company TIE (NYSE Euronext: TIE Holding) bridges the gap between online and traditional business. TIE helps industry and supply chain partners to achieve electronic business collaboration with solutions in the traditional and upcoming markets like Data Quality Management, e-Invoicing, Master Data Management and Digital Channel Communications. Our solutions are proven to lower costs, increase revenue and optimize business processes. Because we have decades of experience to share, TIE remains a key contributor to the development and implementation of global eCommerce standards. TIE is a publicly held company with offices in the United States, France, and the Netherlands.

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: TIE to acquire MamboFive.

ID-card was used by four out of ten enterprises with Internet connection. ID card was used mostly for giving digital signature and for authorising users in information systems. The most active users of ID-card were the enterprises of financial intermediation; two thirds of them used ID-card.

The general trend of reducing the paperwork has increased the interest of public authorities in websites. The enterprises download more and more forms and return them via Internet. Over three quarters of enterprises downloaded forms and two thirds returned them via Internet. Two thirds of enterprises had their own websites.

In January 2008, 97% of enterprises used computers; 99% of them had also access to the Internet. These indicators have not changed much during the last five years. As before, most of the enterprises needed the Internet for banking and financial services; fewer enterprises used the Internet for training and education purposes. The most popular type of Internet connection was DSL broadband connection, used by three quarters of enterprises. Other types of broadband connection, such as cable TV, leased lines, etc., were used by two out of ten enterprises. Non-broadband connections (dial up, ISDN, mobile Internet) were used less and often in combination with broadband connection.

Statistics Estonia has surveyed the use of information technology in enterprises since 2001. In 2008 3,500 enterprises participated in the survey. The survey involves enterprises with 10 and more employees. The usage of information technology in enterprises is studied by statistical organisations in all European Union Member States on the basis of harmonised methodology.

Source: Stat

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: E-invoices gain popularity.

“Around 185,000 credit transfers are made every day with the SEPA scheme,” Massenberg continued, most of them by retail customers. This was still relatively few compared to the total of 87 million credit transfers handled every day, but the number was rising steadily. At the moment, customers use the SEPA credit transfer mainly for cross-border payments in Europe. It can easily be used for domestic payments as well, however. To further this process, Massenberg called above all on public authorities and businesses to make greater use of SEPA schemes: “It is, in particular, the state which needs to lead the way here.” Germany’s private banks offer businesses and public authorities support and extensive advice on switching to SEPA.

SEPA was launched in January 2008 with credit transfers and card payments. The SEPA direct debit is to follow in November 2009. Customers will then be able to make payments throughout Europe in the same way as they do today in their own country. They will be able to select their supplier from anywhere in Europe. “To ensure a smooth transition from national direct debit schemes to the SEPA direct debit, however, lawmakers still need to establish the necessary legal certainty,” said Massenberg. “The banking industry has submitted a proposal which will guarantee that the switch from the German to the European direct debit will be as straightforward and secure as possible.” This would also create more planning certainty for trade and industry.

The Association of German Banks’ revised and reprinted booklet “SEPA 2008: uniform payment instruments for Europe” in the “Figures, facts, arguments” series can be downloaded as a pdf file.

Source: German banks

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Consumers benefit from opportunities SEPA.

These Infor customers have already chosen for ISP-Invoice: Aimtec GmbH, Bouwbedrijf van de Kolk, Brush HMA, Fennel Technologies AG, Ikazia Ziekenhuis, Komatsu, Leolux Meubelfabriek en Thunnissen Groep.

Aimtec GmbH
Aimtec is a German implementation partner of Infor. In addition to the implementation of ISP-Invoice in German Infor Baan customers, they also use ISP-Invoice themselves.
Click here for more information

Bouwbedrijf van de Kolk
Bouwbedrijf van de Kolk is a Dutch construction company.

Brush HMA
BRUSH Turbogenerator Division is part of FKI Energy Technology, with manufacturing facilities in the UK, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. Each factory has been designated as an FKI Centre of Excellence for the design and manufacture of  2 and 4 pole high voltage generators, synchronous motors and power management systems. BRUSH Turbogenerators supplies power world-wide.

Fennel Technologies AG
One year after the start of the project “digital invoice scanning and processing” by one of the Fennel Technologies offices in Germany, now another location is also using ISP-Invoice.

Ikazia Ziekenhuis
Ikazia ziekenhuis is a Dutch hospital. It is situated in Rotterdam and employs about 1300 people.

Komatsu
The German production facility of the Japanese company Komatsu, manufactures giant digging and mining machines. They are the largest producer of construction machines in Germany.

Leolux Meubelfabriek
During 7 decades Leolux has become a European manufacturer of modern furniture with roots deep in the last century, and visions of a challenging future.

Thunnissen Groep
Thunnissen Groep is active in development, construction and maintenace in the Netherlands.

 More information about ISP-Invoice?

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Strong increase of Infor Baan users within e-invoice processing.

• Public Administrations that are setting up new eProcurement solutions and are interested in capitalising on other experiences and in receiving information on available guidelines and tools
• IT companies in charge of the development of eProcurement solutions
• Organisations responsible for existing eProcurement solutions that need to be aligned with the European legislation

A “Call for presentations” is open until the 5th December 2008. Please contact the eProcurement Forum by e-mail  (eprocurement@epractice.eu) if you need further information on the event, or if you are interested in sharing your experience and in presenting a case.

Registration is possible via the ePractice website at http://www.epractice.eu/workshop/37.  Please note that attendance is free and open to everyone who has been registered on the ePractice portal. Since the available places are limited, interested experts are invited to register soon. 

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: EC workshop eProcurement solutions in Vienna.

OBJECTIVES of the workshop

- Discuss and look at how eGovernment can be an effective tool in the reduction of administrative burden for public administration, business and citizens.
- Inform about the present activities of the European Commission by speakers from DG Enterprise and DG Infosoc including the latest call within the ICT PSP Work Programme 2008;
- Provide an up to date overview of the latest activities of the SCM Network;
- Present good practice cases from Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany, among others, showing how administrative burden is being reduced for business, citizens and government;
- Provide participants an opportunity to raise questions and discuss these good practice examples with the case presenters in three parallel working groups.

More information to be found on the website of ePractice.eu.

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: 25-11-2008: ePractice.eu – Administrative burden.

Equens says it will work with ICBPI to “bridge local solutions” in order to enable banks, corporates and service providers to extend their services in Europe.

Commenting on the project Giuseppe Capponcelli, MD, ICBPI Group, says: “This cross-border joint initiative on e-invoicing will allow us to be a first mover in the European scenario and to enhance our corporate banking services. The first international e-invoicing pilot is a win-win initiative that allows the founding partners to extend their reachability to other important trade markets.”

Isabel – which provides electronic banking and invoicing services – is the first to sign up, although other service providers will be invited to join the initiative says Equens.

Says Luc Van Hecke, international sales manager of Isabel: “This pilot project is a great opportunity to enhance our experience in electronic invoicing and to promote interoperability at European level.”

Equens estimates that over 90% of all invoicing worldwide is still paper-based.

The European Commission said last year that the introduction of the European electronic invoicing (EII) network could reduce supply chain costs by EUR243 billion across Europe and help to streamline business processes and drive innovation.

The introduction of an e-invoicing system for public sector firms in Denmark has saved an estimated EUR100-134 million per year, according to a report by an EC task force on e-invoicing.

The EC said it would set up a steering committee to oversee the establishment of a common invoicing framework that would allow businesses across the region to send invoices and receive corresponding payments electronically.

However separate research released by Sterling Commerce at Sibos has found that European businesses are being held back from implementing e-invoicing systems due to the complexity of addressing regulatory compliance requirements and legislation.

The survey of 400 IT managers in the UK, France, Germany and Italy conducted by Vanson Bourne found that the most pressing “e-invoicing concern” for businesses across Europe is “compliance with national e-invoicing legislation”.

In addition, more than half of the companies surveyed admitted they were concerned about supporting disparate e-invoicing systems across multiple geographies.

Chris Hayes, senior product marketing manager, Sterling Commerce, says: “The benefits of moving from paper-based to e-invoicing are widely known and accepted, yet the reality for many European businesses is that even for e-invoicing projects which do receive budget approval, a dependence on multiple solutions to handle compliance with multiple VAT and tax regulations across different territories, is ultimately undermining project success.”

Source: Sibos Online

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Equens partners ICBPI and Isabel on European e-invoicing pilot.

The consultation is based on an Invoicing Study to be produced for the Commission. The Commission hopes to receive contributions concerning a selection of the recommendations contained in the Invoicing Study and other recommendations businesses may have. More information is contained in the consultation paper.

Interested parties are invited to submit their comments by 19 September 2008 at the latest. Comments may be sent alternatively by:

• Regular post, to the European Commission, Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union, VAT and other turnover taxes, Rue Montoyer 59, office 5/96, B-1049 Brussels, Belgium.
• Fax, to +32-2-299-36-48;
• Email, to taxud-d1-invoicing@ec.europa.eu.

The Commission will publish a report summarising the outcome of this consultation as soon as possible after the end of the feedback period. If, for any reason, those contributing wish their comments to remain confidential, they are invited to state it. Otherwise, the European Commission will assume that the contributors have no objection to the subsequent publication of their comments on the European Commission website.

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: eInvoicing: VAT – Review of existing legislation on invoicing.

The Expert Group on e-Invoicing started its work at the end of February 2008. The Expert Group consists of 30 specialists representing all stakeholders: consumers, SMEs, large enterprises, service providers and public authorities.

The tasks of the Expert Group are to identify business requirements and responsibilities for the execution of specific work, as well as to steer the creation – by the end of 2009 – of a European e-Invoicing Framework.

The purpose of the European e-Invoicing Framework is to establish a common conceptual structure to support the provision of e-Invoicing services in an open and interoperable manner across Europe.

The Expert Group has issued a short status report which provides stakeholders with information about the progress of the Group’s work since its formation. Until now, the Group has held several meetings and established a series of initiatives to address a key opportunity for enhancing efficiency and productivity in the digital environment. A mid-term report will be issued before the end of 2008.

Source: epractice

This article is from E-invoicing Platform. Read the original post at: Expert Group on e-Invoicing: “There is no future for paper invoices!”.