Programme

Why should companies (besides sectoral standards for transactional data exchange) also work with cross-sector or even cross-border standards?

The aim of this session is to highlight the difference between sectoral and cross-sectoral electronic messages, but also to discuss the benefits of a cross-sectoral standard.

The European Peppol framework was originally focused on the communication between different sectors in a cross-border environment towards governments. The initial B2G (business to government) focus has been expanded towards B2B (business to business) in the meantime. This expansion has great potential to streamline cross-sector transactional data exchanges and become the international standard for e-procurement.

European Commission has proposed a draft directive on e-invoicing in public procurement, accompanied by a communication setting out its vision for the full digitization of the public procurement process, so-called ‘end-to-end e-procurement’.

This Communication identifies the state of implementation of “end-to-end e-procurement” (from the electronic publication of notices to electronic payment) in the EU, as foreseen by the 2012 Communication “A strategy for e-procurement”. It sets out actions which should be taken by the EU and by Member States to achieve the transition towards end-to-end e-procurement.

In this session we take a look at where we stand today and where we need to go. And more importantly what it means for your business.

The City of Antwerp won the e-FA-award in the ‘public organization in Flanders’ category because of its pioneering role and the good results that have been achieved for many years in the processing of both incoming and outgoing digital invoices.

The City of Antwerp already started using e-finance for the incoming invoicing of suppliers in 2016 and is making progress year after year.

In Q1 2021, the city processed 50% of 32,000 invoices from 700 different suppliers fully digitally. New suppliers report every day that they want to join the system.

Also for outgoing invoicing, 4000 customers have already connected digitally. The percentage varies between 10 and 30% per quarter, depending on the number of one-off invoices. 34 customers with the largest volume of invoices are definitively on board. The city is pursuing an active awareness-raising policy towards other customers. They can easily pay digitally via a QR code on the invoice and discover the user-friendliness and benefits themselves.

Wilfried Horemans and Winnie Brees talk about their experiences.