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The international association of e-invoice operators, GENA, and OpenPeppol are working together to scale and accelerate the introduction of improved B2B functions and e-reporting.
The parties have now come so far in the work that a special project environment within Peppol's network has been approved for launch.
"The aim is to make the interconnection more about Peppol so this is really good news," says Niklas Andersson, Product Manager at Inexchange.
GENA (Global Exchange Network Association) and OpenPeppol, which manages, further develops and bears operational responsibility for Peppol's network, initiated the project to create an incubation environment almost a year ago (November 2023). The main objective is to increase transaction volumes and the number of connected end users within the Peppol network. The belief is that this will lead to greater scalability, thereby avoiding unnecessary investments in infrastructure that is actually redundant.
The initiative is in line with the trend we are seeing globally with the increased use of electronic invoicing and digital tax reporting (CTC). The latter requires an electronic invoice management, also for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). When this fact is taken into account, it becomes clear how important the automation of B2B transactions is from an economic and societal point of view.
"The objective is to highlight the value of interoperability, built on collaboration, as a method of ensuring standardization and scalability", writes GENA in a press release and continues:
"The aim is also to look further at the model of digital reporting requirements based on the 5-corner model and the tests of these continuous and decentralized transactional controls currently being carried out in France".
Cementing new ways of working together
Niklas Andersson, Product Manager at InExchange, sees the incorporation of the test environment into the Peppol network as a positive step. "If we are to work towards standardization, we need to work together. A lot of traffic still goes through traditional bilateral settings and legacy infrastructures.
"A lot of it is about consolidating new ways of working together. If the volumes going through Peppol can increase more, it will become the natural choice. Then the alternatives will be so costly that they will fall away over time, Niklas believes.
Broader range and more variants
The content of the press release sent out by GENA can definitely be interpreted as confidence both within its own organization and OpenPeppol. The goal is to gain support from leading B2B service providers, cloud platforms, public authorities and end-user representatives for the path that is now being mapped out.
According to GENA, the first service providers have already implemented live cases in the incubation environment. The hope is that more operators will follow that example. The environment in question includes extensions to Peppol's interconnection framework aimed at accommodating a wider range of business documents and document exchange variants, focusing on the specific needs of the B2B market.
Thanks to the improvement of B2B requirements, previously implemented by GENA, service providers will be able to handle business-to-business invoicing also within the Peppol network.
Niklas Andersson:
"If this becomes more widely available, it will create further opportunities to bring about new smart solutions. That space for innovation is important. At the same time, it will create better conditions for smaller companies to comply with the new laws and regulations that are being introduced.
GENA and OpenPeppol join forces?
The plan is for the incubation environment to operate at least until the first quarter of next year, with decisions on long-term governance being made in the meantime. GENA is hosting a workshop in Prague next week. The project will then be discussed in more detail when this operators' alliance holds its annual meeting in Brussels on 5 December.
In ongoing contacts between GENA and OpenPeppol, various options for day-to-day cooperation and coordination between the organizations are being explored. Including a potential merger. "The options will be evaluated to determine how our association can best support and strengthen the OpenPeppol organization," GENA states in the press release.
