With the establishment of eeSPA
http://www.eespa.eu/EESPA%20Press%20Release-2011-12-15.pdf we now have the organization in place to drive towards e-invoicing functioning “Just-like-payments. You sign up with one and you reach your customer or supplier globally. Every enterprise is here
free to choose their own service provider – nobody is forced to choose that of his customers. e-invoicing services are generic –driven by the global IOS20022 standard. This all of course means that there is a need for both rule-books, standards and implementation
guidelines – meaning that service providers joining the network has to live up to minimum demands – otherwise the weakest link syndrom will destroy the value of the network
Some people say that standards are not important. Certainly should not be for the enterprises and many of today’s service providers can convert messages from most standards to most standards. But we need to look into the ERP-environments also – how much
more cost-efficient these will become when the invoicing programs and other administrative applications are designed for ISO20022 from the outset.
So expecations towards eeSPA are high:
1. make e-invoicing happen
2. further interoperability
3. ISO20022 e-invoice message standard deployment and support for the other closely interacting ISO standards
Best of luck and success!