Electronic invoicing in the Swedish government

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Electronic invoicing in the Swedish government

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Background

• Political objectives e-government
• National strategy and national action plan
• Changes within public procurement
• Focus on public procurement within the
  departement of Finance
• Changed role for the Swedish Competition
  Authority
• New laws on public procurement
• New mandatory EC-directive and voluntary parts of
  EC-directives from 2004
• Driving forces trends
• 50 will quit within 20 years
• Self service and automization
• Focus on processes and process opitmisation
• Coordination of support processes
• IT-standardization
• Government initiative (E-delgationen)
• Branch organisations for e-business

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Central Government Goals

• All Swedish government agencies must send and
  receive electronic invoices no later than July 1,
  2008
• Can save 400 Million in 5 years

• Part of Swedish Action Plan for E-government
  i2010

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E-invoicing time line

• 2008 E-invoicing
• 2007 Implementation
• 2006 Preparations
• 2005 Prestudy

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The Central Government Agencies

• 250 agencies
• Some are very large with regional andlocal units
• Swedish National Police Board
• National Taxation Board
• Some are small with a few employees
• National Board for Public Procurement

• Almost 0 e-invoices in 2005
• In 2005 approx. 50 had started scanning paper
  invoices
• Mainly running their own administration
• Shared service center for 40 small agencies
• Shared service centers in some of the larger
  agencies

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ESVs commision to lead and coordinate the
introduction of e-invoicing in government

• Introduction of standards for e-invoice
• Identify areas where regulation is needed
• Supporting government agencies
• Identify incentives for supplier connection
• Pilots and knowledge transfer

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Strategy a Full Package is Needed
Guidelines Checklists
Framework AgreementVAN-service
Sharing costs
Support fromconsultants
Pilots
Info to businesses
Framework agreements for workflow applications
Networking andknowledge exchange
Svefaktura as govt standard
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Status on July 1st 2008 project goal
Send Svefaktura
Receive Svefaktura
Approx. 240 govt agencies in total, of which
approx. 20 have been excluded.
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Tasks to improve efficiency
Trimming technology Working smarter Supplier
connections

• Follow-up can be done within a few years time
• Savings on the budget - by means of general
  productivity pressure (ie not compensating for
  inflation)

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Infrastructure Supplier Invoice
Govt agency
Supplier
VAN-service
ERP system
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Infrastructure for customer invoices

• VAN-service as a hub
• Distribution of e-invoices
• Printing service of paper invoices
• Interface and conversion for B2C-invoices for
  Internet banking solutions
• E-invoices created in existing ERP-systems

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Why Svefaktura

• Simple to implement and come to agreement
• Complement to other standards

Invoices

• 11 000 000 invoices
• 85 000 suppliers
• 500 suppliers with more than 1000 invoices
• 100 largest 40 per cent

Suppliers
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How are the Suppliers Affected?

• Benefits also for companies
• Suppliers will save printing and postage costs
• Quicker payments
• Increased customer value
• The government is providing the infrastructure
• One common way
• Existing services will not be affected
• Requirements for electronic invoicing in
  Framework Agreements

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How are the Suppliers Affected?
Flexible - IT investments
Meets requirementsfor frameworkagreements
Small investment - Less flexible
e-invoice from own billing system or VAN
Virtual printer
Meets requirem. - Manual data entry
No change - No benefit
Invoice Portal
Paper invoice to scanning central
Increased maturity regarding electronic invoicing
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Supplier Connections

• ESV have started to contact the 500 largest
  suppliers(Represent 60 of all invoices)
• Inform them about the governments requirements
  on electronic invoicing
• Ask for contact persons and time frame
• Point them to Svefaktura specifications, guides
  och examples
• Help them to start testing with agencies

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Status on Supplier connection February 2009

• E-invoices representing approx 8 percent (rough
  estimate)
• Approx. 250 suppliers connected and currently
  rolling out to more agencies
• A challenge to roll out key suppliers having all
  govt agencies as customers

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Lessons Learned

• A central initiative with coordination
• - Working closely with agencies
• Regulation giving clear unambiguos goals
• Follow up on a regular basis
• Support and FAQ
• Commercial incentive to e-invoice
• Not putting a burden on companies
• Solutions are mature, even for SMEs
• Requirement in upcoming framework agreements
• ? A shorter time frame for roll out
• Large scale pilots needed
• Roll-out step-by-step instead of big bang ?