Posts Tagged ‘CEN’
At June 18th 2009, the CEN/ISSS E-invoice Phase II held an open meeting in Brussels. The purpose of this meeting was to present the public with the more or less final results based on the objectives of this Phase II workshop:
An adoption programme for increased electronic invoicing in European business processes.
1. Compliance of electronic invoice implementations with Council Directive 2001/115/EC and the national legislation regarding electronic invoices;
2. Cost effective authenticity and integrity of electronic invoices and related business documents regardless of formats and technologies;
3. Implementation of compliant electronic invoice systems in using emerging technologies and business processes;
4. A framework for the emerging network infrastructure of ‘invoice operators’ throughout Europe.
These are the presentations that were held during this day.
The draft CWA (CEN Workshop Agreement) below is now available for public comments.
Comments should be sent by 27 July 2009 to Adrian Müller and Olivier Teigen:
[email protected]
[email protected]
Introduction
Nowadays private and public organisations are increasingly more relying on electronic means of communications for carrying out their daily transactions for eBusiness and eGovernment purposes.
In electronic communications, to gain the trust and confidence of transacting parties, a required element is certainty regarding the organisations involved. Knowing exactly which the acting organi-sation actually is, has become a matter of paramount importance for all transacting parties. This issue is known as ?Cyber-Identity?. The matter is often reduced to secure authentication, but goes far beyond this limited subject. Reliable business information stored in trustworthy registries (official commercial registries as well as privately owned and operated directories) accessible online are another part of the picture which is often neglected.
Furthermore, regulations to fight against cyber criminality will enforce traceability of transactions, e.g. ?know your customer? principle or anti-money laundering regulations. These examples show that the topic of the Workshop is also a cornerstone of the IT Governance. Unique identification of business entities by recognised bodies and the verification of such identifi-cations in trustworthy registers are a prerequisite for interoperability in open user groups. E.g. stan-dards for electronic business exchange may mandate the use of unique identifiers in certain fields but do not specify how they can be decoded and resolved without a bilateral agreement.
Therefore, the purpose of this CWA is to discuss these issues and provide standardisation bodies with proper recommendations to achieve this goal. Several business registries currently in place address the issue of business Cyber-Identity albeit in a non-uniform manner. A significant amount of resources remains untapped, due to incompatible and non-interoperable business registries that mainly operate in isolation within non interoperable application domains. The targets of this CWA are also in line with the EC Communication i2010 of the European Commission which indicates interoperability as a main challenge for creating a single information space and identity management as one area for action.
Via this website, consumers and businesses receive information about the benefits of sending bills digitally. Moreover, customers of ABN AMRO, ING and Rabobank ViaMijnBank are able to receive their invoices online, and pay online through their own secured banking environment.
In his speech at the launch of the website, Heemskerk pointed out the benefits of sending invoices digitally. Together with Marco Pastors (the government’s ambassador for e-invoicing ) Heemskerk aims for the government to receive and process 10 percent of all invoices electronically in 2010. “This will save businesses and tax payers a lot of money. Soon we will make these arrangements official by signing an agreement with national union VNO-NCW, MKB (SME) Nederland and the main government parties that send a lot of invoices,” the Secretary announced.
Besides the importance of e-invoicing, Heemskerk stressed the importance of innovation in services in general. “With this kind of initiatives, the banks show that they play a leading role when it comes to the use of ICT.” In other parts of the national services there is much profit to make. In general, productivity in the Dutch services is growing slowly. This has a negative effect on the competitiveness of this sector, particularly concerning the current crisis. A closer look is currently taken at this situation to unveil the cause of this backlog. The Ministry of Economic Affairs also helps sectors to digitize their activities by implementing the program ‘The Netherlands Connected Digitally’ (www.ndiv.nl).
Operating profit increased by 15.5 percent compared to 2007
Basware, the leading provider of purchase to pay solutions, disclosed its full year earnings reporting a record turnover of 86 million Euros. Regardless of the declining market sentiment towards the end of 2008, full year net sales grew by 17.5 percent. The last quarter of the year proved particularly strong with an operating profit growth of 114.2 percent. Basware succeeded well in all of its markets, with most units meeting or exceeding their objectives for the year. The company expects the net sales to develop positively also in 2009 and operating profit is expected to represent 10 to 15 percent of net sales.
“Profitability in the fourth quarter was record high. Considering the significantly softened market conditions, we succeeded excellently,” comments Basware CEO Ilkka Sihvo. “The financial objectives set for 2008 as a whole were achieved in terms of net sales in extremely challenging market conditions. Operating profit for the full year was record-high and was within the guidance. Excluding one-off items, operating profit for 2008 amounted to EUR 9 415 thousand, or 10.9 percent of net sales.”
For the year as a whole, the Norwegian, Finnish, German and North American Enterprise Purchase to Pay units exceeded their objectives. According to its strategy for 2009–2012, Basware aims for growth in all of its markets. US, UK and Germany will continue to have a strategic position, the main focus being on the US market with more weight on the direct operational model.
“Basware succeeded well in the last quarter in securing large international customer accounts, particularly in North America and Europe. With regard to business operations, consulting continued its growth at a rate of nearly 30 percent during the fourth quarter. Software as a Service business increased by 36.2 percent,” continues Sihvo. The SaaS market is predicted to see a remarkably higher growth than the software license market in the business application space during the new strategy period.
In previous economic downturns, the demand for Basware’s products and services has remained more positive than the general economic market as a whole as the company’s software solutions generate cost savings. Basware continues to actively follow the market situation and adjusts strategy execution accordingly to correspond to the changing strategic landscape. The long term net sales growth objective remains in the range of 20-40 percent with operating profit margin of 10-20 percent of net sales.
Click here for the full Financial Statements.
About Basware
Basware is the global leader in purchase to pay solutions with more than 1,200 customers and 650,000 users in over 50 countries around the world. Basware solutions automate business-critical financial processes and deliver value by providing compliance and control, as well as fast return on investment. The solutions are distributed and implemented in Europe, the US, and Asia-Pacific through an extensive network of Basware offices and business partners.
In 2008, net sales reached EUR 86 million. Founded in 1985, Basware Corporation is a public company listed on the NASDAQ OMX Helsinki Ltd. Headquartered in Finland, it has seven subsidiaries in Europe and one in the US.
Broadband access is increasing
In the EU27, 93% of enterprises of ten or more persons employed had access to the internet in January 2008, the same as in January 2007, and 81% of enterprises had a broadband internet connection, up from 77% in January 2007. On average in the EU27, 64% of enterprises had a website in January 2008, compared with 63% in January 2007. These data2 come from Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, and form part of the results of a community survey conducted at the beginning of 2008 on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in enterprises in the EU27 Member States, Iceland and Norway. Besides the indicators presented, the survey also covers e-commerce, e-government and e-business indicators.
Almost all enterprises in the Netherlands and Finland have internet access
In January 2008, the highest proportions of enterprises with internet access in the EU27 were recorded in the Netherlands and Finland (both 99%), Denmark (98%) and Belgium, Austria and Slovenia (97% each). The percentage was less than 90% in only five Member States: Romania (67%), Bulgaria (83%), Hungary (86%), Latvia (88%) and Cyprus (89%).
The proportion of enterprises with a broadband connection in January 2008 was above 90% in Spain, France and Finland (92% each) and in Belgium (91%). Only in Romania (44%), Lithuania (56%) and Poland (59%) did less than 60% of enterprises have a broadband connection.
The data show that while internet access appears to be approaching saturation in nearly all Member States, the level of broadband internet access is still increasing.
Below you can view the outcome of the survey:
Source: Eurostat
French banks have suspended the launch of new pan-European payment services due to confusion over tariffs in the latest setback for a key EU project to improve consumer choice and boost growth.
The European Union has plans for a single euro payments system or SEPA to give its 495 million consumers cheap payments of bills and purchases in euros from a single bank account. The move is designed to encourage cross-border competition and spur the creation of jobs and growth, the EU’s executive European Commission has said.
The project requires the bloc’s 8,000 banks to invest billions of euros changing their systems to comply with common SEPA standards on credit transfers, direct debits and payment cards. SEPA-compliant credit transfers were launched in January by banks across the EU but the French Banking Federation (FBF) said on Thursday its members have suspended work pending clarification from European authorities on tariffs, in particular charging for services that banks supply to each other, it said in a statement.
‘As long as these rules are not clarified, the French banks, like many European banks, cannot start the work on the timetable because like all businesses, banks need to know their economic and legal risks,’ the statement said.
Banks across the EU are worrying how the new services would be paid for after last December when the Commission said MasterCard’s interchange fee on its cross-border credit cards and Maestro direct debit cards violated EU competition rules.
The interchange fee is charged to retailers for processing a card payment but retailers have dubbed it a tax on consumers. MasterCard is appealing the decision, a process that will take months but the November 2009 deadline for a full switch to SEPA products in Europe is looming.
The Commission and the European Central Bank has said banks could use an interchange fee on direct debits but only for an ‘interim period’ and if it was justified — a move that banks say has ‘destabilised’ their planned SEPA business models.
Source: www.reuters.com
Last week, Adobe presented its intelligent PDF eInvoicing solution in a white paper. Adobe proposes an end-to-end approach in which the e-invoice is interpretable by both humans and computer systems. The Adobe approach is based on the eInvoicing processes as described by the CEN/ISSS Workshop on Compliance of e-Invoices and is expected to be compliant with EU and respective national VAT regulations.
The importance of the CEN/ISSS Workshop deliverables
The Adobe whitepaper shows once again the importance of the deliverables of the CEN/ISSS Workshop deliverables. At this point the Workshop is in its second phase, having delivered at least one groundbreaking deliverable: the Draft Good Practice Guidelines. These guidelines are available here, here and soon on www.cenfiscalesguidelines.com Some groups with other interests on e-invoicing do not quite agree with these Guidelines. But we arguably can not ignore the fact that this is a serious attempt to remove one of the major barriers on e-invoicing: uncertainty on e-invoicing.
Intelligent PDF: removing barriers?
The intelligent PDF approach presented by Adobe could also serve as a mean to remove a barrier to e-invoicing: adoption in a B2B environment.
E-invoicing is acknowledged to be an unstoppable innovation across and outside Europe. Taking a leap in the future, full scale e-invoicing would mean that the vast majority of organisation is not only sending e-invoices, but also –and this very important– receiving e-invoicing.
One of the results from a major survey conducted by e-business watch showed that most of the companies prefer to receive e-invoices per e-mail in PDF. This is not the answer that some of the BSP would like to hear. But it clearly shows that receivers are in need of control over the inbound e-invoice.
The intelligent PDF approach of Adobe does just that. It combines the humanly interpretable PDF with a for computer systems readable XML format. So now we can receive and read the PDF invoice and having established the perception of control over the e-invoice, we can now extract and import the XML data into our financial software.
This enables e-invoicing between business partners regardless of size, sector, business processes and accounting software. If in fact the intelligent PDF approach guarantees compliance with the respective national VAT legislation, it would also be usable in cross border e-invoicing.
Intelligence in authenticity and integrity?
Interestingly enough, the Adobe intelligent PDF whitepaper mentions the possibility to sign the PDF document. So the PDF document is the format that is being used for formal validation. The invoice’s XML data can be submitted for material validation against external documentation such as supplier contracts. E-invoices archived in PDF/A guarantee the fidelity of the invoice, while the use of XML ensures that invoice data can be transformed to any format required by auditing software.
Maybe it is also interesting to use the XML data for formal validation. This would implicate that not only the PDF document is signed, but also the XML file, for instance with XADES or XMLDSIG. Then, the XML feed can also be used for formal validation even when archived. Additionally it would be very interesting for SME’s to use the PDF document for material validation.
So, the Adobe intelligent PDF is more intelligent compared to the plain old PDF docyument. We can expect it to have an impact on removing the barrier of awareness, including the aspect of adoption by have the perception of being in control. And maybe the approach can be made even more intelligent by incorporating XML signing. This would be very interesting because then it would not matter which document is being used for formal validation: PDF or XML, or both. Creating ease of use (which will be explained in the next Featured Article).
Read the Adobe white paper here:
The first set of UBL 2.0 data dictionary translations is now out for public review. The first set of UBL 2.0 data dictionary can be downloaded from http://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/idd/UBL-2.0-idd.zip.
Created by OASIS UBL localization subcommittees (LSCs) to aid in global UBL deployment, this package provides translations of the 1900+ standard UBL business term definitions into Japanese, Italian, and Spanish.
The International Data Dictionary (IDD) provides speakers of those languages with a key to the meanings of the standardized XML tags used in UBL 2.0 business documents. The translations are provided as ODF and Excel files using the same spreadsheet format as the data models in the OASIS UBL 2.0 Standard, as recently updated: http://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/os-UBL-2.0-update/mod/.
Subsequent releases of the IDD will include corrections based on input from the international user community and translations into other languages as they become available. Persons wishing to start a UBL localization subcommittee should contact the IDD editor and chair of the UBL TC, Jon Bosak ([email protected]).
Further information:
OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL) TC
Download
Index of /ubl/os-UBL-2.0-update/mod/
Source: www.epractice.eu
The following publication explains a way of using Intelligent PDF to support compliante Invoicing solutions. Adobe has worked together with CEN to create a white paper in which a relatively new type PDF solution is worked out.
The PDF is an intelligent message. The PDF document offers not only an optical readable invoice, but also billing data extracted in XML. Besides this, even charging can be audited.
Read the entire article here:
Océ, an international leader in digital document management, has outsourced the IT support for its European sales companies to Atos Origin, an international IT services provider. This will result in 65 Océ staff working for Atos Origin in 16 countries. Effective 1 November 2008, the contract has been signed for a duration of 7 years and pertains to the implementation and support of standard IT solutions provided by Atos Origin.
Atos Origin will contribute significantly to Océ’s transition to a central European IT organization, which will make it easier and less expensive to provide support to its operating companies and result in greater flexibility at lower cost.
“Outsourcing the IT support for our European sales companies helps us improve our operational processes. The move is part of our previously announced cost savings program, in which 950 job positions are being eliminated. In so doing we will realize € 130 million in savings in 2008 and 2009,” said Jan Dix, member of the Océ Board of Executive Directors, responsible for IT. By outsourcing its IT services, a total of 65 Océ staff will transfer to Atos Origin and an additional 20 jobs disappear due to attrition, resulting in a reduction of 85 IT job positions at Océ.
Atos Origin will be responsible for the management of over 6,000 workplaces and the management of current local applications in Océ’s sales companies in 16 European countries. Other services that Atos Origin offers involve network, server and LAN management, and the management of Océ’s telephone network in Europe.
Continuity and flexibility
“In Europe, Atos Origin has a proven track record in outsourcing and in implementing this kind of IT project”, said Wilfred de Herder, CIO at Océ. “This agreement contributes to strengthening our market position, achieving cost reductions, and improving flexibility. Atos Origin offers our IT staff a solid perspective. All 65 are highly qualified specialists who will be employed in a challenging and professional environment at Atos Origin.”
“This agreement with Océ enables Atos Origin to significantly strengthen its position on the European outsourcing market and to further establish our leading position in the high-tech market”, says Rob Pols, CEO at Atos Origin in The Netherlands. “The agreement offers an excellent opportunity to demonstrate that we have the necessary expertise and experience to manage and implement large and complex international IT projects.”
About Océ
Océ is one of the world’s leading providers of document management and printing for professionals. The broad Océ offering includes office printing and copying systems, high speed digital production printers and wide format printing systems for both technical documentation and color display graphics. Océ is also a foremost supplier of document management outsourcing. Many of the world’s Fortune 500 companies and leading commercial printers are Océ customers. The company was founded in 1877. With headquarters in Venlo, the Netherlands, Océ is active in over 90 countries and employs some 24,000 people worldwide. Total revenues in 2007 amounted to € 3.1 billion. Océ is listed on Euronext in Amsterdam. For more information on Océ, visit the corporate website: www.oce.com.
About Atos Origin
Atos Origin is an international information technology services company. Its business is turning client vision into results through the application of consulting, systems integration and managed operations. The company’s annual revenues are EUR 5,8 billion and it employs over 50,000 people in 40 countries. Atos Origin is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic Games and has a client base of international blue-chip companies across all sectors. Atos Origin is quoted on the Paris Eurolist Market and trades as Atos Origin, Atos Worldline and Atos Consulting.
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