E-invoicing and the European directive

Electronic invoicing or e-invoicing is the exchange of an electronic invoice between trading partners. An electronic invoice is a structured business document, typically in a well-defined format (or syntax). A digital invoice is not an e-invoice. A digital invoice is usually a PDF or Word file that is sometimes a scanned paper invoice. A digital invoice is easy for humans to read and understand. An electronic invoice (or e-invoice) is a data file that is transferred between computers and not easy to understand for humans. Common e-invoice file formats are Extensible Markup Language (XML) and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).

Currently, the electronic invoice is mandatory in most European countries for Business-to-Government (B2G) transactions, i.e. invoices with the public administrations and government instances.

In the Business-to-Business (B2B) environment, governments are expected to implement mandatory B2B e-invoicing in the coming years, with a timeline varying per country. It is already mandatory, often in a phased approach, in some countries today. The latest information on the status per country is available on this web page of the European Commission.

The Descartes Global Logistics Network is an ecosystem of software solutions for the supply chain market. Descartes has a leading position in this field and is often at the forefront of integrated solutions for your logistics needs. It connects hundreds of thousands of logistics and transportation, manufacturing, distribution, retail, government, and ecommerce businesses in over 160 countries. Rely on Descartes’ expert team for a hassle-free integrated EDI solution.

With the Descartes GLN Document Exchange platform – Descartes’ cloud-based SaaS solution for B2B messaging – we provide EDI-based messaging solutions for companies worldwide.

PEPPOL is an EDI protocol and stands for Pan-European Public Procurement On-Line. For more information on PEPPOL please consult the official web page peppol.org. The Descartes Global Logistics Network is a certified PEPPOL access point.

The soon-to-come B2B e-invoicing guidelines (European Directive 2014/55/EU) promote the PEPPOL standard. The Descartes GLN fully supports the PEPPOL standard, and, as a certified access point, we can seamlessly send your e-invoices to your trading partners connected to the PEPPOL network. And since the Descartes GLN Document Exchange platform is a global SaaS solution, we cover every European country where the PEPPOL e-invoicing standard becomes active or mandatory.

How and when all these new rules and guidelines will be implemented or activated is still unclear at this moment. One of these guidelines is ViDA, or VAT in the Digital Age. ViDA is a next-step proposal of the European Commission to streamline VAT handling and B2B invoicing, now planned to take effect by 2028 or later. Also, requirements for e-reporting (the simplified near real-time tax declaration) are still being debated and implementation timings are uncertain.

With Descartes and GLN™ we propose solutions based on the PEPPOL standard and covering the involved EU countries. If you are interested in learning more about our offering, please contact us via the button below.

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