Wednesday 21st January, 2015

The Swedish government has announced that it is considering a move towards einvoicing for the public sector, saying that all invoices being received by public bodies may soon find that it's the only way to do business. To explore this possibility in more detail the government has commissioned the Swedish Financial Management Authority (ESV).

The commission is partly connected to the EU-directive for e-invoice in public procurement that will be implemented in Sweden by 2018. The directive includes how the public sector should be able to receive and manage e-invoices in any of the formats that are included in the future European standard. Allowing suppliers solely to send e-invoices to the public sector would be to take the directive one step further.

In Denmark and Norway bans on paper invoices already exist and Spain is also ready to introduce this.

ESV will also analyse the consequences for various types of businesses and consider if competitiveness in public procurement could be affected in any way. It will report the results of the findings to the government by the 31st May 2015.