A framework for the emerging network infrastructure of eInvoice service providers throughout Europe

When implementing electronic business and administration related documents within the supply chain, including (in particular) electronic invoicing - as well as others, many organizations decide to utilize the services from (eInvoice) service providers1. There are several benefits from using service provider’s services, some are the same for large enterprises as well as for SME’s, while others are different. The major reason for SME’s to use service provider services is the possibility to concentrate on their core business and utilize service provider expertise and facilities for electronic invoicing without investing too much themselves in dedicated personnel, equipment and software. Large enterprises are looking also for outsourcing and rationalizing electronic invoicing tasks. In addition to that they often want to have a single entry point for their exchange of electronic invoices. The present document gives: - guidance on good practices for service providers in their activities on information exchange and routing, as well as - issues related to eInvoice addressing to facilitate the electronic invoice exchange between the service provider networks. The present document is applicable to Business-to-Business2 eInvoicing in general, whether the invoice is handled with out without human intervention and it is mainly addressing the service provider functions as part of the eInvoice transaction chain. There is a lot of legislative issues and regulations related to eInvoicing and service provider operation.