It has been approved by the EU Parliament and the Council of Ministers and has become a Directive and is being transposed into law in all member states. See the following link for more information. e-Invoicing
The deadline of 18 April 2019 was set following the publication of the European Standard on electronic invoicing in the Official Journal of the European Union on 17 October 2016, allowing 18 months for compliance with the Directive and Standard. The Directive permits that Member States may postpone the application of this date for sub-central contracting authorities and contracting entities until 30 months after the publication of the Standard (April 2020). To avail of this, it is intended that the transposition of the Directive into Irish legislation will include the postponement option for sub-central contracting authorities and contracting entities. The Office of Government Procurement (OGP) intend to have this come into effect by April 2019. eInvoicing Ireland have prepared an Information Note on the compliance deadline which is available to access at www.ogp.gov.ie/eInvoicing.
It depends on the timing of the move to shared services and its compliance with eInvoicing. At a minimum your organisation needs to arrange a facility to receive and process an e-invoice if requested by a supplier after April 2019 (or 2020 for non-central government with deferral).
The RCT (Relevant Contract Tax) is a withholding tax. Withholding tax does not have to be declared on an invoice. The RCT supplier should be designated in the public body’s FMS for RCT purposes similar to any other such supplier when set up for payment.
It can have significant financial benefits. Many countries have now mandated it for suppliers. Tenders in the future may include eInvoicing as a requirement.
The top five eInvoicing financial benefits are: (1) Save time when you receive a traditional invoice. If you enter the data manually, it is a very time consuming process and errors can occur. eInvoicing eliminates the need for these processes saving you time and also reducing errors which can be costly to remedy. (2) eInvoicing can reduce the cost of receiving an invoice by up to 90 per cent or €17 per invoice. Furthermore, the cost of sending an invoice can be reduced by 44 per cent or €13 per invoice. These estimates include everything that is involved in the process of sending or receiving an invoice. (3) For suppliers in particular, eInvoicing helps to ensure they are receiving payments from their customers as quickly as possible, improving cash flow for business. (4) eInvoicing cuts down, and in some cases can eliminate, paper from the invoicing process because it’s transferred electronically. (5) Improve communication / customer service: chasing people to get an invoice paid on time can be stressful on business relationships. With e-Invoices the sender is notified when invoices are sent and the buyer receives notification when they receive the invoice in their system.
Selecting a suitable service provider that understands your ERP system and provides value for money. A list of certified Access Point Service Providers can be found at PEPPOL Certified APs However if your invoice volumes are low then a free portals are available are free of charge.
Yes, because it is a conformant subset of the European eInvoicing standard.
To comply with PEPPOL all invoices must be in a standard format. There are a number of service providers that provide a full PEPPOL conversion service and will manage the conversion of existing electronic formats and transfer them to a compliant PEPPOL invoice.
The timeframe varies from supplier to supplier. The requirements will depend on the system used to generate invoices.
There is no difference as the EN is based on international standards and its use has been agreed by all national standard bodies throughout the EUs
The eInvoice compliant with the European data model is based on international standards and is designed for cross border trade. It handles multi-currency.
A PDF is not an EN compliant invoice, therefore a Public Body is not mandated to receive PDFs.
We have not received a recommendation directly from the C&AG or the LG Audit Service, however, Revenue Commissioners have issued the following on electronic invoicing. See Other types of VAT invoices
In Ireland it is not mandated for suppliers to send eInvoices currently but only for Public Bodies to receive and process eInvoices complaint with the EU standard.
Yes – all participants were sent a copy.
Yes, and will be circulated to the conference participants and project website.
The PEPPOL environment used to transport the invoice is deemed to be very safe. The use of Purchase Orders is also important. However good business controls are always required even for eInvoices.
Yes – normal rules apply.
As part of the rollout to all sites a small number of suppliers will be onboarded for each site. Once each LA is live with e-Invoicing and compliant with the EU Directive, the LGMA will work with the sector to create a supplier onboarding strategy. This might involve an analysis of LG sector spend to identify high volume suppliers while also liaising with other public sector bodies who may have already onboarded suppliers for e-Invoicing. Energia is one non-PO type supplier that is being examined.
There is a process that has to be adhered to for setting up suppliers. That will be explained to users during the e-Invoicing training sessions.
No, the electronic invoice has no extra information to identify RCT. RCT invoices will be handled in the usual way.
Audit guidelines will be made available under the FAQ on the LGMA Extranet shortly
EFT details are ignored on the electronic invoice. This is stated in the CIUS. IBAN etc are stored on the FMS system and payments will be made based on that information only.
Yes, e-Invoices have been received from a supplier through the AP provider that was processed successfully through Agresso using the Agresso XML format.
It is not part of the funded project. However the system is capable of sending invoices as well as receiving them. In order to do this the Agresso Invoice would initially have to be mapped onto the PEPPOL invoice. This option can be examined in the future to see how suitable it would be for the LG sector.
There is no change to how this is handled.
If it is the mapping of an invoice to the PEPPOL standard then the Supplier is responsible for their own mapping. They would seek assistance from their AP provider. If the query relates to mapping of invoices to Cost codes (e.g. for non-PO) then this mapping will be performed in the FMS after the invoice is received from the AP provider.
Yes, some Suppliers can use paper while others are electronic.
Date the invoice was received.
It depends; They can choose from over 100 PEPPOL Service Providers. Some provide free Portals where the Supplier can key in the invoice for no charge.
There is no change to how Reverse VAT is dealt with. Agresso will introduce a special workflow area for tax related invoices where they will be examined by AP users (selected by the LA) before approval.
Normally Auditors will take hardcopies from the FMS system. An audit trail will prove that the invoice as represented on the FMS system is the same as sent by the Supplier. Therefore, the FMS will also handle storage. The LG Audit service will examine the e-Invoicing process for suitability.
There is no change to how PSWT is handled.
When raising a requisition you can only choose an ID that is specific to that supplier.
No change. It is not expected that e-Invoicing will be used for T&S claims.
No, they will seem to be the same. However, there is an Audit trail to prove the existence of every invoice received electronically
There will be no change to how you handle this currently.
It is rejected upon receipt and the Supplier and Buyer are automatically notified There will be validation by the AP provider for the existence of an invoice number or otherwise. If it does not exist where it is expected then the invoice will be returned. A second validation will occur in the FMS where a check will be performed to see if the PO number is valid for that supplier and whether it is open. This check in the FMS can be turned on or off by the LA.
The supplier will have to provide some form of identification that is acceptable to the LA as exists presently.
The unique identifier for each supplier will be used. This identifier will be mapped to the local supplier code.
Any error that is identified will be recorded as such in Agresso where a trigger will send a notification to the supplier. All such notifications will be automatic.
The approval process remains unchanged using the Workflow in Agresso.
It is expected that most faults will be identified automatically using the automated notification system. Any remaining issues will have to be dealt with in the usual way.
There should be no change to how this is handled. E-Invoices will use Agresso workflow as before.
The eInvoice will be treated the same as if it was keyed manually. The level of workflow used in a LA can be examined during implementation.
Not sure if this query was fully completed. If paper invoices using the postal system are eliminated it is inevitable that it would reduce the carbon footprint. The greater the volume the greater the reduction.
This query should be submitted to the GAWG for discussion.
The LGMA will assist local authorities to select a relevant supplier for testing.
It will be imported but fail the matching process.
Yes this is a featured normally turned on in Agresso.
Non POs such as utility bills will have flexi fields found using MPRN number or phone number. The CIUS informs these Suppliers that these identifiers must be present.
It is not a requirement that an AP Provider facilitates testing. However, it is common practice.
The Supplier is responsible for mapping their own FMS to the PEPPOL Invoice.
Bank account information is ignored on the Invoice and so not forwarded to the import process.
Yes
Invoices are received in a common gateway. However once identified they are separated for each of the LAs.
All Utility Bills will be required to do this. If any Supplier attaches an invoice image, this will be used. Otherwise a HTML image will be created using the imported data.
We discussed this in an NSAI meeting. Whereas sending emails could be seen as not best practice, PEPPOL, the technology used here, has more than sufficient security to ensure only the two parties are involved, or their agents. Therefore there should be no GDPR issues using PEPPOL.
When we considered what functions the invoice should support, we decided not to consider that the invoice would be used for reporting purposes e.g. analysis. Therefore, there was no need, for instance, to consider using product codes. We have produced a document called the Functional Report that will explain our approach.
Only structured data is part of the eInvoice Directive i.e. it has to be either UBL or UN/CEFACT XML which is conformant to EN 16931. Therefore you are not required to accept PDFs.
All Central Government Bodies must now be able to receive and process EN 16931 compliant Invoices. Sub Central i.e. the others, have until 18th April 2020.
A Supplier can require a Public Body to accept EN 16931 compliant invoices if it is part of a Tender that is above the EU Threshold – see https://ogp.gov.ie/revision-of-eu-thresholds/
The VAT Directive requirements are included in EN 16931. Also provided the eInvoices are properly stored and can be retrieved they should be compliant with Revenue requirements – see https://www.revenue.ie/en/vat/vat-records-invoices-and-credit-notes/invoices/other-types-of-vat-invoices.aspx
There is no mandatory requirement for Suppliers to send Invoices. However Public Bodies must be able to “receive and process invoices” – see https://ogp.gov.ie/einvoicing/
Central Government must already be capable. All others must be compliant by 18th April 2020.
Ireland has already transposed this into law – therefore it is a legal requirement in Ireland that Public Bodies do that. See http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2019/si/258/made/en/print?q=electronic&years=2019
Yes it is also law in the UK – see https://ec.europa.eu/cefdigital/wiki/display/CEFDIGITAL/eInvoicing+in+United+Kingdom