Monday 6th October, 2014

Basware, is the first service provider to establish a technical connection to Mercurius, Belgian Federal Government’s unique centralised platform for e-invoicing. As the Federal Government received its very first electronic invoice from Electrabel using this connection.

The Belgian Government endorses the targets set by Europe and has committed itself to reach the goal of 50 % e-invoicing by 2020. To help ensure this, the Federal Government has developed the Mercurius platform, a centralised platform for e-invoicing that is to be linked to all the ERP packages used by the different public services.

All electronic invoices that the Belgian government receives through this platform, will also be automatically integrated with Fedcom, the accounting system used by all public services.

To enable companies to send the government electronic invoices, e-invoicing suppliers need to connect to the Mercurius platform. Basware was the first service provider to complete the technical preparations to establish this connection. As a Basware customer, Electrabel was closely involved in the development of this pilot project and got to send the very first electronic invoice to the Federal Public Service for Budget and Management Control.

According to the Minister for the Budget and Administrative Simplification, Olivier Chastel, “The success of the e-invoicing is an important step in the simplification and modernisation of our public service. It means the government can work more efficiently and ensure a better follow-up and control of expenditure, as well as timely payments to companies.”