To make a reality of its objective to make e-invoicing the main method for invoicing in Europe, the first meeting of the new European Multi-Stakeholder Forum met for the first meeting in Brussels on 13 September.
Composed of more or less representatives of national e-invoicing fora, both from the private and public sector, the Forum
- consists of 52 members representing public administrations, standardisation bodies and the user and provider sides of the market. And 12 member representing the European Commission.
- is envisioned to provide a platform to exchange experiences and best practices which can pave the way to the broad-scale adoption of e-invoicing at both national and EU level.
- will monitor the uptake of e-invoicing in all Member States.
- helps the Commission in identifying further measures to facilitate the mass adoption of e-invoicing across borders.
- is expected to present and discuss their first recommendations in the first half of 2012.
Attendance list
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/ict/files/invoicing/attendance_list_en.pdf
Notules / impression
Not yet available.
[UPDATE] But we already got our hands on some feedback from UEAPME‘s Economic and Fiscal Policy Director Gerhard Huemer. His improssion of the meeting:
- The objective is to promote a large scale adoption of electronic invoicing both at national and EU level.
- The huge savings potential and efficiency gains linked to e-invoicing will not materialise unless other aspects such as accounting, bookkeeping and payments are also made in an electronic way and all are interconnected.
- Moreover, as larger companies are poised to profit from e-invoicing more due to economies of scale, less expensive and simple solutions must be found to cover SMEs’ and con-sumers’ needs.
- Finally, Mr Huemer expressed concerns about the different existing national systems, calling for an afford-able and straightforward cross-border e-invoicing tool.
[UPDATE 2] Charles Bryant shared his impression of the meeting:
- The meeting welcomed some 55 representatives
- Whereas most attendees were from the public sector, the UK and Germany stood out by having two private sector representatives.
- Only 11 of 27 states have a National Forum in place.
- There is considerable fragmentation in most dimensions across the EU:
- There are a variety of adoption levels including a number of quite mature markets mainly in Northern Europe.
- Sometimes the role of a proactive public sector is decisive, sometimes it is a common standard
- The creation of a mature and interoperable e-business ecosystem is a success factor, often driven by business users who demand structured information
- In many markets B2C electronic billing has been a catalyst
- For governments and large buyers, waving the ‘mandatory’ stick has had an impact and the availability of one or more commonly used or imposed solutions has had successes.
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