Seres just posted the «Study of Electronic Invoice in Europe»an analysis of the use of electronic invoicing in the continent, within the framework of its objective of identifying and anticipating trends in its use.
According to the report, currently 100% of European countries use electronic invoicing in your business transactions, 85% mandatory and 15% voluntarily. In this way, the commitment at European level to electronic invoicing in the business field is highlighted, as well as its consequent trend towards international massification. Likewise, from these data the forecast is derived that more and more companies from different countries will make use of it to provide their commercial processes with robustness and traceability.
This new situation, characterized by the essential role of electronic invoicing in commercial transactions in Europe, responds to the priority focus placed generally on the benefits of this digital document. Both the European Union and the particular institutions of each country on the continent, as is the case of the Government of Spain, have identified the potential of the e-invoice in terms of security and environmental savings, management and time, and have opted for she.
With regard to the European Union, and more specifically the European Commission, they have a long history of acting as a dynamic agent for electronic invoicing. In fact, within the framework of European Digital Agendathe e-invoice has been positioned as a driver and facilitator of internal relations in the common market and of the competitiveness of companies in the area.
At the B2G (business to government) level business to government), electronic invoicing became mandatory through directive 2014/55/EU and, currently, many governments of the different Member States are studying the possibility of introducing it in the field of private companies.
Italy, pioneer country
In Europe, Italy is a pioneer in the implementation of electronic invoicing in private companies. In the rest of the continent we find cases such as France, in which they have a fairly advanced project towards the widespread use of electronic invoicing, and cases such as Germany and Belgium, countries in which they are still giving the first steps in order to implement it.
In Spain, for its part, in 2018 the mandatory use of electronic invoicing was extended to State subcontractors. Along these same lines, last September, the Government of Spain approved the Create and Grow Law, which obliges companies and freelancers to use the e-invoice in their commercial relations.
Once said Law enters into force, gradually and over the next three years, it is expected a crowd of the electronic invoice. Specifically, companies with more than eight million euros in annual turnover will have a period of one year to implement the e-invoice; while the rest of the companies will have two more years.
In this context, Javier López, CEO of Seres, highlights: “The digitization of processes should not be the end, but rather the means for companies to gain competitiveness and efficiency. Without a doubt, the electronic invoice represents the perfect first step to start a digital transformation project”.
Thus, the mass use of electronic invoicing is an international trend currently favored synergistically by the different regulatory bodies throughout our continent and the world. The electronic invoice provides the processes with a safety, traceability and speedas well as environmental, management and time savings, which make it an essential tool on the road to the digital transformation that the world and its economy are experiencing.
