Report on the assessment of the European Standard on electronic invoicing, according to Directive 2014/55/EU

Directive 2014/55/EU on electronic invoicing in public procurement has the objective of promoting the uptake of electronic invoicing in public procurement, by ensuring interoperability and improving legal certainty. It was a href="http://www.europeansources.info/record/press-release-electronic-invoicing-in-public-procurement/">adopted in April 2014 by the European Parliament and Council, following a thorough preparation process led by the Commission and involving a large number of stakeholders.

The Directive requires contracting authorities to receive and process electronic invoices which comply with a European Standard (EN) for electronic invoicing. The Directive also foresees that a process is started by the relevant standardisation organisations to define this standard. The obligation only concerns invoices related to public contracts which fall in the scope of the EU Directives on Public Procurement.

As the EN was not available at the time of adoption, the Directive entrusts the Commission with the responsibility of carrying out an evaluation of the standard as regards its practicality, user friendliness and implementation costs for an end-user, before the standard become applicable. The EN has recently been adopted by CEN and this report presents the results of the evaluation carried out.