Of my 2011 posts the Heavyweight support for ISO20022 e-invoicing message standard

https://www.finextra.com/blogs/fullblog.aspx?blogid=5081

was the most viewed one. I certainly hope this is symptomatic - and serves to spread the message of what is happening. Even if customers should not worry about standards (service providers are happy to convert...) it is clear that this is important for the following reasons:

1. the e-invoicing standard must not be looked at in isolation - to be useful it has to interlink with other standards - and only then efficiently automating payments (SEPA), reconciliation, accounting, cash flow estimates, financing, VAT-reporting, VAT-payments, e-procurement, e-payments, e-id etc

2. the ISO20022 family has most of these interrelating standards in place and the rest is being worked on

3. for the all-important SME-market the fokus is in the downstream area - from invoice to payments, to...  e-procurement is not the issue

4. we are working for generic and globally standardized just-like-payment tools - high time to realize the danger of buyer or seller specific portals

5. global standards makes it easier for ERP-providers to be cost-efficient and interconnect different services in the cloud environment - again it is important to create open environments

6. ISO20022 is not owned by the finance industry - but is strongly supported by the major player SWIFT - and has a clear maintenance process that can pick up new needs and see to it that the needed changes are implemented in all parts of the family

The first step is to move to ISO as the network standard. All major players should commit to this good-for-society-atl-large goal as sooon as possible.