Wednesday 29th January, 2014

PEPPOL (Pan-European Public Procurement Online) suggests the Norwegian approach to e-invoicing is a success story of regulatory, standardisation and competitiveness achievements that could be repeated across Europe. Norway has more than 10,000 public and private sector entities exchanging over 2,7 million e-invoices since the mandatory requirement was set-up in 2012.

As a very active player in the area of electronic procurement, particularly in eOrdering and e-invoicing, the country has implemented the same public procurement regulations that are compliant with the upcoming EU Directive on e-invoicing in public procurement.

The success of Norway’s approach to e-invoicing consists of: regulatory measures, EU-wide interoperability and connectivity through PEPPOL, and a roll-out plan focused on getting the major central government entities onboard, adoption of their suppliers and e-invoicing service providers.

During autumn 2013, the number of e-invoices received increased by 20‐30 % per month. The two main drivers for this growth, that is expected to continue in 2014, are that more contracting authorities mandated e-invoicing from their suppliers when entering into new contracts; and the increased market maturity among e-invoicing service providers and senders of e-invoices.

According to PEPPOL the Norwegian approach is replicable for two main reasons. Firstly, the business processes supported and the technology implemented meets European-wide business requirements through PEPPOL. Secondly, Norway has already set-up a regulatory framework meeting the forthcoming Directive.

Some of the countries already implementing the PEPPOL approach for e-invoicing are: Austria, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland and Sweden.