Providing invoice data electronically and in a format could allow businesses to benefit from shorter payment delays, fewer errors, reduced printing and postage costs. Most importantly, structured e-invoices facilitate business process integration from purchase to payment, meaning that invoices could be sent, received and processed without manual intervention. Currently, exchanging e-invoices is often complex and costly, in particular across borders and for SMEs.

Michel Barnier, Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services, said "E-invoicing has the potential to make a big difference, for businesses, consumers, and European trade as a whole. The benefits in terms of saving time and money are fully in line with our Europe 2020 strategy and with the Digital Agenda for Europe in particular."

Vice President Antonio Tajani, Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship added "Revolutionising the way we pay bills, e-invoicing will boost the overall competitiveness of European Companies, especially SMEs"

Existing rules governing e-invoicing in Europe are not uniform. As such the potential benefits of e-invoicing still remain to a large extent unexploited. As part of its flagship initiative, ‘A Digital Agenda for Europe’ (see IP/10/581, MEMO/10/199 and MEMO/10/200), the European Commission is focusing its efforts on removing barriers to the broad-scale adoption of electronic invoicing in Europe. The four key priorities on e-invoicing are:

• Ensuring a consistent legal environment for e-invoicing
• Achieving mass market adoption by getting SMEs onboard
• Stimulating an environment that creates maximum reach between trading partners exchanging invoices
• Promoting a common e-invoicing standard

For each of these priorities, the Commission Communication sets out a number of specific actions for example:

• In 2011, the Commission will propose a revision of the e-signature Directive to provide cross-border recognition of secure e-authentication systems.
• The Commission will launch two new projects in the framework of the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme (CIP) to help specific sectors to agree on interoperable processes for the electronic exchange of data and documents along the different steps of the supply chain (including e-invoicing).
• The European Committee for Standardization (CEN), a major provider of European Standards and technical specifications, should develop a Code of Practice including consistent terminology and clearly defined roles and responsibilities for actors involved in e-invoicing.
• CEN should design implementation guidelines for a Cross-Industry Invoice data model and collaborate with international standards organisations, such as UN/CEFACT (United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business) and ISO (International Organization for Standardization).

To facilitate the monitoring and implementation of these actions, the Commission has invited  Member States to establish national multi-stakeholder fora on e-invoicing by June 2011. The Commission will complement this by setting up a stakeholder forum on e-invoicing at EU level.