[News brief] International E-invoicing: what to expect?

Is there an international e-invoicing standard?

There are currently no globally recognized international e-invoicing standards in place. However, different committees and countries are initializing more country-specific, and/or region-specific standards. The CEN (European Committee for Standardization) is working towards the creation of an invoice template that would be common between all countries, reviewing the different standards and laws in every country to ensure the format will work coherently everywhere. There are currently several different testing projects in the works in Europe on this matter.

Other initiatives in the works

We have recently seen the introduction of the Chorus initiative in the B2G sector in France, and Italy and Spain have similar B2G legal invoicing requirements in place now. However, in places like Latin America, especially in Mexico, mandatory e-invoicing has expanded into the private sector, and require that all invoices be processed digitally across all sectors. The FNFE (Forum National de la Facture Electronique/ National Forum of the Digital Invoice) in France represents the French invoicing interests in all of the current European organizations and initiatives. Generix Group is invested in the FNFE as we know that the sooner we can come to a more communal invoice format, the sooner we will be able to create a more standardized approach to invoicing on an international level.