eInvoicing in Finland: The Example of South Karelia

In 2003 a project under the Ministry of Finance was carried out to make an electronic invoicing recommendation for public authorities. It was decided that the public administration will not develop any new format or services for its purposes but utilize existing services and formats in private sector. The region of South Karelia has been one of the main drivers in the testing and implementation of electronic invoice in local administration

Main results, benefits and impacts

Main indicators of impact and results are the outreach of service provision and the effects achieved for agencies and other users: Outreach: Today in governmental units 60 - 80% of purchase invoices are received and processed electronically and the target is that by the end of year 2007 all governmental units can receive and process them electronically. Today 20% on invoices are received electronically by the service provider and the target for the year 2007 is 30%. The others are received in paper format and the service provider scans these paper documents and interprets and sends them to the government unit using Finvoice format. The slowing factor is suppliers' ability and willingness to send electronic invoices. By mid 2005, of 220 million invoices exchanged in Finland (G2G, G2B and B2B), 8% were exchanged using eInvoicing. Considering also the exchange based on EDIFACT format, already 15 ? 20% of all invoices were exchanged in electronic format at that time. Effects: - Savings of 20 Euros per invoice which would add up to 4.4 billion Euros by 100% electronic invoicing in Finland (estimated) and 104 million Euros in South Karelia; - Higher savings when invoicing processes are integrated in basic services, i.e. in the legacy applications; - More efficient work and reduced workload for invoicing issues, i.e. free resources for other tasks; - Reduction of amount of paper to be processed and stored; - Faster payment due to reduced circulation time; - Reduced errors and typos by eliminating manual data entry; - Competitiveness by using innovative technology.

Return on investment

Return on investment: Not applicable / Not available

Lessons learnt

Lessons learnt are: - eInvoicing is a pioneer application not widely used in other countries; - Infrastructure allowing any company or public authority by contacting only its own service provider to send eInvoices to any of its customers regardless of their ICT solutions; - eInvoicing is a 'killer application' as it provides huge benefits for all; - All stakeholders are involved in the development and implementation; - Natural market pressure will be used to widen adoption by use of the ePioneers as intermediaries; - Test of service in real-life situations - the "LivingLabs"- incl. regular workshops and concrete actions; - Set up of a Forum consisting of all relevant actors. Transferability limits of the case: - Flexible infrastructure that allows parties to have a reasonable number of different solutions (as it is the situation also in or between other countries) which is adapted from private industries' best practice; - Transferability to other regions within Finland is high as e.g. South Karelia's solution may be used as blueprint for other regions; - Transferability to other countries, the legal framework has to be considered which could differ, e.g. for signatures. Organisational and technical features may then more or less 'easily' be replicated. Scope: Local (city or municipality)