Summary

eInvoicing is at an early stage of development in the UK for B2G, but quite widely adopted among larger enterprises and their suppliers[1]. eInvoicing in the public sector is expected to see more concerted take-up in the years ahead and an overall government policy framework is likely to be developed for both eInvoicing and eProcurement based on standards such as those developed by CEN.

The Government is fully committed to paying its suppliers promptly and sees eInvoicing as a means of achieving this, as well as generating savings and process efficiency for government entities. Increasingly individual departments are adopting shared service solutions for their "back offices" and as part of that adopting common purchase to pay principles, which include eInvoicing. As these shared services are rolled out, departments will make increasing use of eInvoicing. The Scottish devolved administration has implemented an eInvoicing solution, as part of its shared services strategy.

[1] we do not count humanly generated PDF invoice exchange, which is very common especially among SMEs, as 'eInvoicing'

Status	VERIFIED
Reviewer	Charles Bryant, Tony Nisbett

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Full Country Sheet

Legislation

The Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 grants powers to Ministers to regulate the use of electronic invoicing in the field of public procurement in England – so not Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales, which set their own regulations. So far no specific regulations have been made under the Act. Public contracting authorities (central government, devolved governments, local authorities and arms-length agencies) are however free to use eInvoicing and many have done so. The consequence is a variety of specific models and use of third party services. Concerted policy and implementation frameworks are expected to be put in place, such as that put in place by the Scottish devolved administration.

eInvoicing platform or management systems

There is no single or central platform for eInvoicing UK-wide. Where adopting eInvoicing contracting authorities will either 1. Use a solution provided by a third-party service provider based on a 'three-corner' model, where supplier and buyer operate over a common platform, or 2. Establish an internal system for the purpose and on-board suppliers directly, or 3. As in the case of the NHS, consider the use of PEPPOL as an example of a 'four-corner' model, where the buyer and supplier operate from separate platforms or access points, which are then connected. There are central solutions in Wales and Scotland, see below.

Approach for receiving and processing eInvoices

There is some use of scanning of paper invoices, but eInvoice data is normally captured from data-file transfer, from supplier portals, or from machine-readable PDFs. This data is used by platform operators to create structured eInvoices and to feed accounts payable management systems. A high proportion of eInvoices are aggregated, processed and validated in a service provider platform (SaaS) before being ingested by buyer work flow and ERP systems. EDI networks are also in use as are purchase cards. New standards based on CEN Norms are likely to be implemented.

Examples of eInvoicing adoption

Central Government

Some major departments already make extensive use of eInvoicing, for example the Ministry of Defence and Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. Major shared services facilities for groupings of departments are being rolled out and will include eInvoicing.

England

The adoption of structured eInvoicing in the NHS is beginning to roll-out. NHS is implementing the CEN BII eInvoice standard to be used in a network conforming to PEPPOL specifications, thus creating a four-corner model, although three-corner model flows are also possible in PEPPOL.

Local authorities have individually implemented eInvoicing solutions as part of their procurement activities and some have established joint shared-service centres to gain benefits from cooperation.

Scotland

The Scottish Government is deploying eInvoicing capability as part of its national e-Commerce Shared Service through PECOS P2P. PECOS is used by 86 public bodies across all sectors (central government, local government, NHS, universities and colleges) and currently captures approximately £5.5 billion of procurement spend and manages over 2.5 million orders. The Scottish Government centrally funds the e-Commerce Shared Service, including eInvoicing.

The ability to use eInvoicing is not limited to those public bodies that use PECOS and is being offered to all public bodies regardless of the P2P/finance system in use. The Scottish Government is centrally co-ordinating the adoption of public bodies and is working to ensure that the requirements of the EU eInvoicing Directive are well understood, that public bodies are aware of the key activities that need to be delivered to ensure a successful implementation of the solution and that any issues/concerns are mitigated and managed centrally.

The eInvoicing solution accepts PDF invoices that have been automatically generated and issued by suppliers and translates these into a cXML format which is then made available to the invoice processing environment used by the public body. The solution can also accept other formats such as direct cXML, HTML etc. Specific validation and exception management workflow/criteria are configured for each public body to enable correct e-invoices to be received for processing and payment.

As at end of October 2016, 11 public bodies are using the solution with over 50 suppliers actively issuing invoices and a further 110 suppliers working towards connection. The solution has captured just over 89,000 invoices, generating savings of circa £1.2 million.

Wales

Following transposition of the EU Directive, policy decisions will be made. Individual Welsh Public Sector organisations have adopted a variety solutions including; Finance/P2P, OCR, outsourced scanning, Smart PDF, EDI, Supplier Portal (back-office integration and PO Flip), use of virtual and physical e-Payments (Purchasing Card). An eInvoicing Special Interest Group has been formed with attendees represented from various sectors. This group is facilitated by the eProcurement Service (ePS) and will help to inform the Welsh Public Sector e-Invoicing strategy and development of best practice.

Northern Ireland

More information to follow.

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