The different actors of the electronic invoicing reform

Finance Strategy

Confirmed AMOA Finance Consultant

Between 2 and 2.5 billion invoices are exchanged each year in France. The electronic invoice, also known as e-Invoice or e-Facture, is still too often considered as a simple paper invoice dematerialized in an image or PDF format.

However, the finance law has clarified its application framework, including the European standard EN16931, defining the semantic data model expected for an electronic invoice.

From 2024 onwards, only structured formats will be accepted, PDF alone will gradually no longer be allowed.

With the reform, new solutions (PPF, PDP, OD) will be integrated into the application ecosystem of companies to cover theire-invoicing flows.

This being the case, new questions are emerging: Who are the new actors who will accompany the reform’s passage? Between the different architectures, how to choose the right solution adapted to the company’s context? What are the key steps to successfully transition to these new e-invoicing tools?

The Y-scheme and the new actors of the reform

To implement the new law on electronic invoicing, the tax authorities have modeled the incoming and outgoing flows of invoices between buyers and suppliers in a “Y” diagram, with new tools.

The Public Billing Portal

A key player, the Public Billing Portal – PPF – is a public trusted third party operating as a free service to centralize transactional and referential billing data for the tax authorities. In addition to this service, the PPF will take charge of the directory allowing, among other things, the registration of the various companies and their dematerialization platform(s).

A partner dematerialization platform

A Partner Dematerialization Platform (PDP) is a private trustworthy third party offering mainly dematerialization services for incoming and outgoing invoicing flows. Its services will include complete management of P2P (Procure-to-Pay) and O2C (Order-to-Cash) flows. Private companies, opting for a PDP solution, will be allowed to exchange billing data streams directly with each other. Vendors are required to be state-approved for their PDP solution. To date, no PDPs have been recognized, with the official list expected in the second half of 2023.

A dematerialization provider or operator

A Dematerialization Provider or Operator “DPO” is also a private trusted third party that can offer the same type of services as a PDP. On the other hand, a company using a DO does not have the ability to exchange billing data directly with another company, but can exchange flows via the PPF. The DO is not required to obtain state certification to operate.

With the introduction of the new law on electronic invoicing, many questions are raised about the application of e-invoicing and e-reporting. In our previous article, you will find the keys to help your company prepare for the challenges of this new regulation.

Functional contributions of the new solutions

Although the expected benefits of a solution may differ from one company to another, we offer a non-exhaustive list of potential functionalities that may help you choose an e-invoicing solution.

	PPF	PDP	OD
Main benefits
Receive invoices directly from the supplier via PDP	X	X	X
Directory consultation to verify the third party (customer, supplier)	X	X	X
Update of the directory	X	X	X
Extraction of data for the DGFIP	X	X	X Prohibited
ISO/IEC/27001 and SecNumCloud certifications	X	X	X
Support for Invoice X, UBL (Universal Business Language), CII (Electronic Data Interchange)	X	X	X
Support for bulk billing	X	X	X
Edition of e-Reports (B2C, B2B and B2G international / B2C France,...) in compliance with the standard	X	X	X
Conversion of the format of an invoice issued by a supplier; ensuring the integrity, authenticity and completeness of the data	X Limited	X	X
Authentication: strong security level	X	X	X
Electronic signature system integration	X	X	X
Integration with major ERP systems (On-premise, SaaS, PaaS, IaaS)	X	X	X
Other services: End-to-end purchasing and sales cycle coverage, SSO authentication, approval workflows, collaborative spaces, dashboards with customizable KPIs, AI-based engine	X	X	X

Legend: Standard : X – Possible : X – Not applicable : X

Depending on their needs and the level of maturity of their application and functional ecosystems, companies will have more or less strong expectations from the various players. The cost of implementing the solution is not likely to be the only criterion for choosing a solution.

Indeed, since all solutions operate in SaaS with the provision of services, their choice will then have to consider the expected levels of depth and performance of the developed functionalities, as well as the “hidden” costs (licenses, maintenance, training, archiving, storage, etc.) inherent to this type of solution.

Prepare for the shift to these new tools

Since the 90’s, digitization and associated technologies have revolutionized the economic world by offering a new paradigm on document management for both companies and individuals. With the advent of e-commerce, companies had already started to move towards the dematerialization of invoicing.

The reform only regulated an already well-established practice, allowing, among other things, better traceability and authentication of economic transactions. However, there are still heterogeneous levels of maturity, regardless of the size of the company, in order to align processes and information systems with the challenges of the reform.

Therefore, the preparation of the choice of its solution(s) appears clearly as one of the keystones necessary to the success of its transition to the reform for companies.

The analysis of the existing system is a key activity that must be carried out as early as possible in the selection phase, both in terms of processes and the technical and functional specificities of its information systems. The work should not focus on the supplier and customer invoicing links alone. Indeed, the work sites will have to be parallelized on the P2P and O2C flows, with an end-to-end vision, to :

evaluate the level of capitalization resulting from its existing ;
Challenge the different editors on the adequacy of their standards with the specificities of the company (sectorial standards, …);
respond to the challenges inherent to the necessary change management, in order to limit the impacts related to the superposition of new specific layers;
Secure the different levels necessary for the choice and deployment of a solution.

Beyond the sizing of human and budgetary resources, project governance must be clearly identified to the various stakeholders (Sponsor, Project Manager, Integration, Business, etc.) to avoid any risk of inertia.

Since the tools are developed in SaaS, the editors very often keep the control of the integration of their solution. Therefore, depending on the framework (Agile – Scrum, V-cycle or mixed) desired for the project, this can have a strong impact on the project governance.

An AMOA and management system must then be defined before the selection phase, then shared in full transparency with the editors, in order to :

to align the positions between the customer and the integrator with an independent body;
to fluidify and frame the relations between the various parties;
to facilitate decision making;
to frame the traceability of decisions;
to allow the control of the planning, given the restricted deadlines of the “0 buffer” reform.

Finally, although part of any IT project, data cleansing is an even more important task in the context of invoice dematerialization projects.

Indeed, since the editors have a billing model based largely on the archiving, storage and processing of documents, it is necessary to take advantage of this project to secure the perimeter of transactional data recovery as well as referential data on all impacted processes. This allows, among other things, to:

Challenge the publishers on the costs of archiving and storing the invoices;
avoid the tunnel effect for business teams, among others, in case of juxtaposition of other activities (accounting closing, …);
anticipate the feasibility and technical complexity of aligning the old data with the requirements of the reform.

How to anticipate the issues and challenges of the new e-invoicing reform for your company? In a previous article, you will find all the information you need to know to prepare your company’s ecosystem and get through the e-invoicing reform.

Conclusion on the different actors of the e-bill reform

In conclusion, the choice of a solution, whether it is PDP, PPF only or OD, will be specific to the needs of each company. Notwithstanding their specificities, companies will have to enter into a “quick wins” approach of standardization of customer and supplier invoicing processes, in order to be agile in the face of future technological and regulatory evolutions posed by e-invoicing.

New trends are likely to emerge among publishers positioning themselves on the e-invoicing market. Many of them are now positioning themselves on sectoral niches (e.g. jefacture.com for accountants) or are opting for strategic partnerships with ERP publishers (e.g. Esker with Cegid). Competition forces publishers to upgrade their service offering, with P2P or O2C pure players developing functionalities on both streams.

On this subject, SQORUS, a consulting firm specialized in digital transformation of HR, Finance and IT functions, can help you with your e-invoicing issues.

Do not hesitate to contact us to discuss with our experts.

Learn more about this? Contact our experts!

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