Peppol is a set of specifications for establishing and also the primary implementation of a federated electronic procurement system for use across different jurisdictions. [1] Through Peppol, participant organisations can deliver procurement documents to each other including electronic invoices in machine readable formats, avoiding the labour of data entry.
OpenPeppol, a non-profit international association registered in Belgium, is the governing body of the primary implementation and developer of specifications. [2] The primary implementation of Peppol as at 1 March 2022 had 485,411 participant organisations from 78 countries registered to receive procurement documents. [3]
No other implementations of Peppol are known to be in use by businesses or government bodies around the world. Whilst it would be possible for an alternative Peppol implementation to be created with alternative governance arrangements, Peppol specifications would need to be adjusted to remove dependencies on the OpenPeppol association in aspects including mandatory use of OpenPeppol public key certificates. [4]
In an implementation of Peppol, a single central database known as a Service Metadata Locator (SML) lists participants with a unique identifier, the electronic procurement standards supported by each participant and reference to a separate database known as a Service Metadata Publisher (SMP) that each participant has chosen. A Service Metadata Publisher (SMP) extends the information listed on a participant to include technical information on a web application programming interface known as an Access Point (AP) chosen by each participant to deliver procurement documents. [5]
For the primary implementation used worldwide, OpenPeppol, as the governing body, operates the Service Metadata Locator (SML). OpenPeppol only allows participants to be listed in this database if they have registered with an OpenPeppol approved Service Metadata Publisher (SMP). Approval of Service Metadata Publishers (SMPs) is delegated by OpenPeppol to one of numerous country-specific Peppol Authorities (PAs) and is also contingent on candidate Service Metadata Publisher (SMP) organisations being paid members of OpenPeppol. A Peppol Authority (PA) is typically an individual government body for a country and they may impose differing requirements and technical standards on Service Metadata Publishers (SMPs) prior to approval being granted. [6]
Delivery of information in an implementation of Peppol occurs directly between the chosen Access Point (AP) of a sender and receiver, as obtained via the discovery process using the Service Metadata Locator (SML) and relevant Service Metadata Publishers (SMPs). [5] A protocol named eDelivery AS4 (based on AS4) is used to deliver procurement documents between Access Points (APs). Transport Layer Security is used and electronic documents will only be accepted by a receiving Access Point (AP) if the payload has been validated by another submitting Access Point (AP), providing a level of fraud protection against phishing and other confidence tricks.
For the primary implementation used worldwide, OpenPeppol, as the governing body, delegates responsibility to Peppol Authorities (PAs) to approve Access Point (AP) service providers. Approval of Access Point (AP) service providers is additionally contingent on the service provider being a paid member of OpenPeppol. Peppol Authorities (PAs) may impose additional differing requirements and technical standards on Access Point (AP) service providers.
Peppol specification development and the primary implementation are governed by the OpenPeppol Association. The highest managing body is the General Assembly, which elects the Secretary General and the Managing Committee responsible for the operations. [7] Development is prepared in the work groups handling specific tasks and owned by a management team member. The work groups function on a volunteer basis, though many of the members are actually sent to the work group by either their employer or client, for example a specific user. [8]
Peppol originated via a project with the same name (with an uppercase stylised acronym) under the European Union Competitiveness and Innovation Programme from May 2008 to August 2012. The European Union provided funding of over 15 million Euros to support the development of Peppol. [9] A consortium of 11 European countries being Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and the United Kingdom also contributed to the development of Peppol over this period. [10]
The goal of the project was to solve interoperability issues in electronic public procurement by aligning business processes using common standards, addressing common legal issues and developing open source technologies. [11] Agreement on the common standards for document content and on the technical aspects was reached through consensus amongst consortium members.
After the project ended the OpenPeppol Association was founded in Belgium on the 1st of September 2012 to continue the work on the framework. [12]
Peppol is widely used in many European countries: [9]
Outside Europe, Singapore became the first Peppol Authority outside Europe in May 2018. Its Nationwide E-invoicing Initiative is based on the Peppol technologies. [27] [28] In Japan, Digital Agency, Government of Japan became a Peppol Authority in September 2021. [29] [30] Peppol has also been considered as the e-invoicing solution in Australia and New Zealand. [31] Malaysia introduced Peppol e-invoicing to drive digital transformation and in alignment with its national e-invoicing framework. [32]
Electronic data interchange (EDI) is the concept of businesses electronically communicating information that was traditionally communicated on paper, such as purchase orders, advance ship notices, and invoices. Technical standards for EDI exist to facilitate parties transacting such instruments without having to make special arrangements.
The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards is a nonprofit consortium that works on the development, convergence, and adoption of projects - both open standards and open source - for Computer security, blockchain, Internet of things (IoT), emergency management, cloud computing, legal data exchange, energy, content technologies, and other areas.
An invoice, bill or tab is a commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer relating to a sale transaction and indicating the products, quantities, and agreed-upon prices for products or services the seller had provided the buyer.
E-procurement is a collective term used to refer to a range of technologies which can be used to automate the internal and external processes associated with procurement, strategic sourcing and purchasing.
Universal Business Language (UBL), ISO/IEC 19845, is an open library of standard electronic business documents and information models for supply chain, procurement, and transportation such as purchase orders, invoices, transport logistics and waybills. Originally developed by an OASIS Technical Committee with participation from a variety of industry data standards organizations. UBL is designed to plug directly into existing business, legal, auditing, and records management practices. It is designed to streamline information exchange through standardization, facilitating seamless connections between small, medium-sized, and large organization, thereby eliminating the re-keying of data and providing a comprehensive framework for electronic commerce.
Government procurement or public procurement is undertaken by the public authorities of the European Union (EU) and its member states in order to award contracts for public works and for the purchase of goods and services in accordance with principles derived from the Treaties of the European Union. Such procurement represents 13.6% of EU GDP as of March 2023, and has been the subject of increasing European regulation since the 1970s because of its importance to the European single market.
The Publications Office of the European Union is the official provider of publishing services and data, information and knowledge management services to all EU institutions, bodies and agencies. This makes it the central point of access to EU law, publications, open data, research results, procurement notices, and other official information.
Government procurement or public procurement is when a governing body purchases goods, works, and services from an organization for themselves or the taxpayers. In 2019, public procurement accounted for approximately 12% of GDP in OECD countries. In 2021 the World Bank Group estimated that public procurement made up about 15% of global GDP. Therefore, government procurement accounts for a substantial part of the global economy.
The term Public eProcurement refers, in Singapore, Ukraine, Europe and Canada, to the use of electronic means in conducting a public procurement procedure for the purchase of goods, works or services.
The Handle System is the Corporation for National Research Initiatives's proprietary registry assigning persistent identifiers, or handles, to information resources, and for resolving "those handles into the information necessary to locate, access, and otherwise make use of the resources".
The Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) is the body in which the regulators of the telecommunications markets in the European Union work together. Other participants include representatives of the European Commission, as well as telecommunication regulators from the member states of the EEA and of states that are in the process of joining the EU.
All European countries show eGovernment initiatives, mainly related to the improvement of governance at the national level. Significant eGovernment activities also take place at the European Commission level as well. There is an extensive list of eGovernment Fact Sheets maintained by the European Commission.
Electronic invoicing is a form of electronic billing. E-invoicing includes a number of different technologies and entry options and is usually used as an umbrella term to describe any method by which a document is electronically presented from one party to another, either for payment or to present and monitor transactional documents between trade partners to ensure the terms of their trading agreements are being met. These documents can include invoices, purchase orders, debit notes, credit notes, payment terms, payment instructions, and remittance slips.
The European Single Procurement Document (ESPD) is an electronic self-declaration document to be submitted by suppliers interested in tendering for contracts for the supply of goods, works or services to public bodies located anywhere within the European Union.
Prozorro is a public electronic procurement system where state and municipal customers announce tenders to purchase goods, works and services, and business representatives compete for the opportunity to become a state supplier.
OpenProcurement is an open source procurement software toolkit that automates procurement processes. It provides tools to design and build a transparent and competitive procurement process backed by strong data collection, electronic documents, and detailed reporting.
Transaction-based reporting, or Invoice reporting, sometimes called Continuous Transaction Controls (CTC), is a method of data collection of governmental bodies to reduce fraud and increase compliance. Invoice reporting helps in overcoming the inefficiencies of post audit systems, where the auditors can only check VAT refunds after the facts and mainly needs to use data that is collected by the companies it is auditing. The core of invoice reporting is that all companies within a jurisdiction report their invoices to their tax authority.
At around £290 billion every year, public sector procurement accounts for around a third of all public expenditure in the UK. EU-based laws continue to apply to government procurement: procurement is governed by the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, Part 3 of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015, and the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations of 2015 and 2016. These regulations implement EU law, which applied in the UK prior to Brexit, and also contain rules known as the "Lord Young Rules" promoting access for small and medium enterprise (SMEs) to public sector contracts, based on Lord Young's Review Growing Your Business, published in 2013.
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