e-Invoicing in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland on the Horizon for 2019

In the global context, favored by the digital economy, paperless is the future and technology is presented at the service of innovation and efficiency to achieve it. The penetration of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and electronic invoicing are indicative elements of the state of digital development. In northern Europe, the PEPPOL network and its standard will gain prominence as of 2019. Countries such as Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden have opted for this path to guarantee interoperability in the development of e-Procurement.

The PEPPOL standard

PEPPOL was developed in the context of the public procurement strategy in European Public Administrations and as a guarantee of interoperability.

PEPPOL is a set of specifications designed to facilitate public procurement between companies and administrations, regardless of their location or the systems they use. In short, it is a common and interoperable standard, key for the development of cross-border e-Procurement.

The standard message adopted by the PEPPOL network is called PEPPOL UBL (Universal Business Language) and it is a variant of XML.

The development and growth of PEPPOL is remarkable in many countries of the European Union. PEPPOL is increasingly consolidated as a network with infrastructure and standards recommended by public bodies in these countries and adoption is growing due to its effectiveness and the harmonization of communications between countries.

EDICOM participates in the European GOV2EU Project (2016-EU-IA-0096) helping public companies adopt the European standard for electronic invoicing to facilitate cross-border transactions.