- Created by Sophia Bunemann on Mar 24, 2020
CEF TELECOM GRANT BENEFICIARY
How are public health care institutions implementing eInvoicing with the help of a service provider?
Service Providers and eInvoicing
A service provider helped Member States implement eInvoicing solutions that comply with the European Standard. The company develops platforms for data transmission between companies by EDI technology (Electronic Data Interchange) or eInvoice (electronic invoicing). The company has supported a wide range of CEF eInvoicing projects.
What is the goal of this project?
Hospitals across Europe are using different electronic invoicing formats, complicating system interoperability. According to the eInvoicing Directive, all public entities have to be compliant to the eInvoicing standard in 2019 to ensure a transparent and efficient public procurement. This is where EDICOM started to play a role as service provider. Since 2016, the service provider has supported projects in the European Union to help the public administration entities to meet the eInvoicing Directive 2014/55/EU deadline on 18 April 2019. For these particular projects, the service provider is helping public health care providers, mainly hospitals, to implement the standards to be compliant. The use of eInvoicing will ensure interoperability and simplify public procurement for them.
As a large service provider, EDICOM has or is currently leading the following three eInvoicing projects:
- 2015- EU-IA-00058 GOVeIN- European eInvoicing Project: Implementation of the European electronic invoice within the Public Health area
- 2016-EU-IA-0096 GOV2EU- Supporting public entities to adopt EU Standard on the electronic invoice for cross-border transactions
- 2017-EU-IA-0146 Public Hospitals from Belgium, Poland, Austria, Hungary and Italy prepared to the eInvoicing European Norm
The firm has played a significant role in each project by providing help to Member State hospitals to start using electronic invoicing and helping them with the transition to meet the 2019 deadline. Each of these projects was in-part financed through CEF grant funding administered by the Innovation & Networks Agency (INEA).
What role have CEF services played?
Although EDICOM is an experienced eInvoice service provider, the CEF services have provided assistance through services such as:
- Technical eInvoice specifications on the European standard and specifications
- Testing services to perform conformance tests
- Supporting services from the service desk
How have these services been beneficial?
The CEF eInvoice services were used to generate proof to the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA), the agency that manages various EU programme grants including CEF, that the service providers eInvoicing solution is compliant. CEF offers a conformance testing service that allows solution and service providers, and public entities to check the conformance of their existing eInvoicing solution against the core invoice format of the European standard on eInvoicing.
According to EDICOM, the conformance tests provide a valuable opportunity to identify mistakes on the implementation side and helped the service provider to ensure it's implementation is compliant with the European standard.
“We recommend fellow service providers to promote the European Directive and to convince their clients to be as compliant as possible to see results.”
Jose Rocha, Research and Design Project Manager at Edicom Capital SL
What can service providers learn from EDICOM?
The service provider sets a great example on how service providers can work with and utilise CEF services to help European public entities meet the European Directive deadline in 2019. Today, some EU institutions use the service providers platform to generate and send electronic invoices across Europe, which shows that service providers have numerous opportunities to facilitate services in the long term. The three mentioned projects, of which two have been completed, are successful demonstrations of big consortiums promoted by public and private entities from different Member States in the health sector. This track-record highlights that service providers play a vital role in the CEF programme. Note that although the CEF eInvoicing deadline is approaching in spring 2019, the Digital Single Market is a continuous project and many public entities will rely on private solutions to transform digitally.
What’s next?
The company started its third CEF eInvoicing project, to help public hospitals from Belgium, Poland, Austria, Hungary and Italy prepare for the eInvoicing European Directive, and CEF eInvoice services will be utilised for this project too.
This project was funded through a CEF Telecom grant. See how your project can also benefit from EU funding.
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CEF eInvoicing