Sweden (2017 eInvoicing Country Sheet)

Legislation

In Sweden, two laws mandate the use of eInvoicing for central government authorities:

1. Ordinance for accounting (Förordning (2000:606) om myndigheters bokföring §21f);
2. Ordinance for electronic information exchange (Förordning (2003:770) om statliga myndigheters elektroniska informationsutbyte § 3). It has been amended multiple times, with the latest amendment in 2015).

The Swedish National Financial Management Authority (ESV) has issued detailed regulations in accordance with these ordinances. This also includes mandated use of eProcurement in the ordering processes. ESV has mandated central government agencies to be connected to PEPPOL by November 2018.

The Swedish government is currently preparing legislation to implement the eInvoicing Directive and to make the use of eInvoicing mandatory for local and regional governments as well. When implementing the Directive, the government will take further steps to require suppliers to only send e-invoices to the public sector in Sweden by November 2018. In addition, the proposal introduces supporting actions for suppliers as well as for municipalities that do not use the eInvoicing[1]. Supporting actions include information campaigns, trainings etc. New legislation is expected to be approved by the Parliament by the end of  2017. In June 2017 the proposal on legislation (in Swedish) was presented and is now open for review.

eInvoicing platform and eInvoicing management solutions

The central authorities use an eInvoicing platform to receive and process eInvoices, which is operated by solution providers under framework agreements managed by the Swedish National Financial Management Authority (ESV). Sweden encourages the use of PEPPOL for electronic procurement, enabling connected public entities and economic operators to communicate with each other. Legacy eProcurement solutions based on EDIFACT (GS1 EANCOM) are still supported by central, regional and local government.

Approach for receiving and processing eInvoices

Solution providers, on behalf of public sector organisations, operate the access point to receive eInvoices from economic operators. For the central government, the ESV manages framework agreements for the provision of a common infrastructure for central government organisations. Currently, Visma and CGI are the solution providers operating these framework agreements.

Local and regional governments do not have access to the aforementioned framework agreements. Several platforms are in use by local and regional governments. Sweden follows the four corner model whereby economic operators and central authorities connect to solution providers responsible for the transmission, reception and processing of eInvoices. In Sweden, the solutions used are based on the recommendations by Single Face To Industry (SFTI) regarding standards for both messages and other infrastructure. SFTI recommends PEPPOL for use by the Swedish public sector and its suppliers.

In October 2016, the ESV published a call for tenders to renew the eProcurement platform. The aim is to have support for the full procurement process divided into separate solutions covering both pre-and post-award processes. The new framework agreements are expected to be available for call-off by the end of 2017. These framework agreements can be used by all central government agencies and also approximately 120 local and regional authorities, which, prior to publication, have expressed their consent to use them.

Additional information

An important player involved in eInvoicing in Sweden is the Single Face To Industry (SFTI), a joint initiative in the Swedish public sector to promote and facilitate eProcurement. SFTI is led by the Swedish Association for Local Authorities & Regions (SKL), the ESV and the National Procurement Agency. The SFTI is composed of public administrations, economic operators and IT providers. Its aim is to recommend standards for eProcurement in the public sector and to support its use. It offers a service desk free of charge, publishes guidance on its website and organises a wide range of courses and seminars in the eProcurement domain. It is active in international standardisation in CEN, OASIS and similar organisations.

The ESV is commissioned by the government to facilitate the use of e-procurement (post award) in Swedish central government agencies. The ESV is a sponsor of the work in SFTI. It also has the role of a PEPPOL Authority; as such it is responsible for the registration of companies that wish to become an Access Point (AP) or a Service Metadata Publisher (SMP). The ESV acts as a central purchasing body for different enterprise applications in central government (accounting, HR, Payroll, BI, Procurement, etc.).

In addition, efforts are also made to increase the use of PEPPOL and Sweden plays an active role in OpenPEPPOL where support for the European Standard on eInvoicing is being prepared. The ambition is to use the PEPPOL* specifications as is, without national blends.

[1] These municipalities represent less than 15% of approximately 300 entities according to a study undertaken by the ESV in 2015

VALIDATED BY THE EMSFEI MEMBER

Last updated:  Nov 29, 2017 17:33