CEF eInvoicing: New and Improved Conformance Testing Services
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The European Commission has launched an improved Conformance Testing service, provided as part of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) eInvoicing Building Block.
The Conformance Testing service allows solution & service providers and public entities to check the compliance of their eInvoicing solution against the core eInvoice of the European standard on eInvoicing. CEF eInvoicing Conformance Testing service therefore verifies that an implementation based on the eInvoicing specification is indeed conformant to the specifications.
The European standard on eInvoicing (in both the UBL 2.1 Invoice message and the UN/CEFACT Cross Industry Invoice (CII)) makes it possible for sellers to send invoices to many customers by using a single eInvoicing format and thus not having to adjust their sending and/or receiving to connect with individual trading parties. To achieve this the European standard on eInvoicing defines the core elements of an electronic invoice in a semantic data model.
The new version of the service contains the new “Sending eInvoice” feature available on the GITB testing platform. This means service users can verify that they are able to receive and process conformant eInvoices, as well as send them. The new test possibilities are made available by means of the ISA2 Interoperability Test Bed, a service that supports projects delivering cross-border public services with a generic and customisable conformance testing platform.
The Conformance Testing service provides four eInvoices:
- An eInvoicing containing all mandatory and optional specifications of the core of the European standard on eInvoicing
- An Invoicing containing the minimum specifications of the core of the European standard on eInvoicing.
- An Invoicing containing the minimum specifications of the core of the European standard on eInvoicing including a VAT exemption.
- An eInvoice containing an error message which should therefore be received but not processed.
When the Conformance Testing service sends an eInvoice to a service user, it is transmitted with the AS4 eDelivery specification. Users may submit an eInvoice via AS4, AS2 or via a web form upload.
If the tests are conducted for grant purposes (with CEF funding received from the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency), it is necessary to use only the eDelivery methods (AS2 or AS4) for the test results, as eDelivery testing sessions are saved in the testing portal and can be downloaded at a later stage. If the testing is carried out with AS4 validation, both scenarios (sender and receiver) have to be executed.
The CEF eDelivery Building Block proposes the use of the AS4 messaging protocol to create a secure channel for the transmission of documents and data by electronic means, over the internet or via a private network.