The Office of Government Procurement (OGP), which operates within the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in Ireland, is responsible for transposing the European Directive (2014/55/EU) on eInvoicing in public procurement.
The transposition is underway and expected to be completed in advance of 18 April, 2019. The Directive requires all contracting authorities and entities to be able to receive and process electronic invoices that comply with the European Standard on eInvoicing. Central Government must make the necessary provisions to comply with the Directive by 18 April, 2019 while Sub-Central contracting authorities and entities may defer until 18 April, 2020.
The OGP also has responsibility in general for public procurement policy and in particular for the eInvoicing programme. The primary objective of the programme is to facilitate the enablement of all public bodies to deliver the minimum capabilities to accept and process eInvoices by the compliance deadlines. Its secondary objective is to facilitate the enablement of straight through processing in high-volume public sector bodies and shared service centres, to enable public administrations to reap the full benefits of eInvoicing.
As part of Irish eInvoicing strategy, on 18 January 2018, the Minister of State Patrick O'Donovan T.D. signed Ireland up as a PEPPOL Authority member of OpenPEPPOL which coordinates the PEPPOL eDelivery network for eProcurement and eInvoicing. This network enables businesses to "Connect Once - Connect to All" European Public Sector buyers, ultimately making it easier for businesses to engage with Government online.
There are a number of eInvoicing initiatives across the Irish public sector which are aimed at addressing the business needs of the lead contracting authority or of a specific group of contracting authorities within specific sectors shared services.
Financial Shared Services initiatives are underway across all areas of Government (including Health, Education, Central and Local) and it is expected that these will be the main implementation points for establishing the eInvoicing capability required to deliver compliance with the Directive.
The eInvoicing Programme has established a multi-supplier procurement framework. The specifications of the framework have been developed based on the invoice processing environments, capabilities and requirements of the contracting authorities.