How e-Procurement standards can facilitate integration; the Swedish

experience

Kerstin Wiss Holmdahl

Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions

Alacala de Henares, Madrid , September 15, 2015

SFTI (Single Face To Industry) in Sweden

SFTI is a joint initiative to promote e-procurement

Lead by -Swedish Association of Local Authorities and

Regions (SALAR) and the government agencies;- The Swedish National Financial Management

Authority(ESV) and The Procurement Authority

(Upphandlingsmyndigheten).

Cooperation public sector, together with enterprises and IT providers. All represented in the workinggroups

and when recommending standards & guidelines.

Mandatory e-ordering and e-invoicing in governmental sector

• The SFTI initiative started with strong support, but on volountary basis

• 2008 came regulation: all Swedish government must be able to send and receive electronic invoices no later than July 1, 2008

• Can save 400 Million € in 5 years (ref.to pre study)

• From 2013 also mandatory to handle e-ordering ( agencies with more than 50 employees).

Part of Swedish Action Plan for E-government – i2010

• But still not mandatory for municipalities and regions/county councils, even if most of them have e-ordering and e-invoicing

Mandatory e-invoices for whole public sector in Sweden?

• The Swedish government mandated the Swedish National Financial Management Authority (ESV) to investigate the possbilities of regulate mandatory e-invoicing to the whole public sector.

• In that case suppliers to all contracting authorities should send e-invoices.

• Meetings, interviews with different stakeholders and an on-line survey is the base for some part of the study. And consequense analysis of effects and costs etc.

• The study presented a report in May with a commendation that suppliers to all Contracting authorities should send e-invoices.

• Now a legislative procedure combined with the implementation of the EU directive of e-invoicing in public procurement

E-procurement in figures Even if volountary for local and regional level, many have started:

appr 65 % of municipalities have e-invoicing,half of them also e-ordering - 11 % consider starting up within

next few years.- 95 % of the regions/county

councils have e-invoicing ( 88 % of them also have e-ordering)

Appr 75 % of contracting authorities have e-tendering, which means appr 35% of the value of procured goods and services with e-tendering. (81%,

but 83 % answered the survey)

E-procurement in figuresHow many e-invoices do the municipalities and regions receive (structured

e-invoices, not scanned or pdf-invoices)? Survey 2013 (% e-invoices)

1-10 % 11-25 % 26-40% 41-50% 51-75 % Mer än 75 % Vet ej0

5

10

15

20

25

30

6%

24%

20%

21%

20%

3%

7%

Recommended standard in Sweden

• E-invoicing and e-Procurement are increasing.• The recommendation and usage of standard has

been crucial.• It facilitates for interoperability and many messages

beteween many contracting authoritise and many suppliers (”many to many”).

• Since 1998 we have had and still have many messages based om Edifact format.

• But after introducing XML format 2004 it has become more easy, especially for SME:s.

Recommended standard in Sweden

SFTI recommend standard for e-Procurement messages in the public sector and their suppliers.

SFTI´s Standards based on CENBII and PEPPOL• Catalogue (Profile BII 01 Catalogue Only)• Order & Order Response (Profile BII 28 Ordering)• Despatch Advice (Profile BII 30 Dispatch Advice)• Invoice (Profile BII 05 Billing)

”SFTI Svehandel” processwith CEN/BII deliverables

9

SupplierBuyerattest

attest

Catalogue CEN BII 01

Ordering CEN BII 28

Mail confirmation

Order response CENBII 28A

Despatch advice CENBII 30

Invoice CENBII 05

PG/BG PaymentReady for

payment

New recommendation: PEPPOL Infrastructure

SFTI have made a prestudy during 2014• This included an analyse of both opportunities and potential

risks with a recommendation of PEPPOL as infrastructure

The analyse showed that: • PEPPOL is expected to simplify adoption• It makes migration between service providers simpler and • It connects the Swedish community to Europe

November, 26 the SFTI board of directors decided, after recommendation from SFTI Beredningsgrupp (a fora with contracting authorities, suppliers and IT providers) to

recommend PEPPOL infrastructure and registry as SFTI

New recommendation: PEPPOL Infrastructure

The recommendation includes • the PEPPOL BIS messages that already are SFTI

recommendations and • the Svefaktura 1.0 (the first version in XML and based also on

UBL, but an earlier version than the PEPPOL BIS invoice)• The Svefaktura is widely used and important to include, as a

compliment to the PEPPOL BIS Invoice

Svefaktura; the Swedish e-invoice, 11 years• The Svefaktura was developed 2004; we can now celebrate 11

years anniversary!• The Svefaktura online validation portal is used to test more than

30 000 files a year – of course a minimal part compared to the production volumes

• The municipality of Sigtuna was the first to recieve a Svefaktura from a small supplier in May 2005 ( a small courier service).

How can we facilitate integration between eProcurement processes further?

• The post award phase (catalogue/pricelist, order, despatch advice and invoice) is now a reality

• How can we connect the pre award process?• The catalogue is the ”bridge” between the Post and

Pre award procedures.• After awarded a supplier the agreed products and

prices in the catalogue can be transported to the ordering system.

• Usage of the same standard facilitates!• CEN/BII provides this standard for us to implement.

SFTI and current work

• So, we continue with the work related to pre award e-cataloges• And:• We continue with more and more specialised specifications for different

ordering processes; for example to order medicin requires special traceability and security.

• Also e-invoices related to the care of patient and exchanging information between the regions means special requirements related to data integrity.

• By using the Svefaktura BIS invoice and attachments this can be solved.

• In this working group we will also handle the public review from CEN/BII!

• During 2015 we focus to give a lot of informtion related to PEPPOL (to contracting authorities and ITproviders first and then economic operators (suppliers of good, services etc).

Other initiatives in Sweden on policy level

• The Swedish Competition Authority (KKV) has been mandated by the government to make a draft action plan for e-procurement in Sweden. It shall be presented in October.

• Also there is currently a survey in order to see the economic operators view of e-procurement and status of their participation in these procedures.

• Last year KKV had a survey regarding the status of e-tendering in contracting authorities in Sweden. It showed that appr 81% of the CA:s have started with e-tendering

Conclusion: Recommending standard is fundamental

The standard must meet requirements based on• European and national legislation and• End-users needs.

CEN/BII deliverables meets these requirements,

and works very well in our daily ordering-invoice processes in Sweden.

Recommended standardalso needs support

SFTI also gives• support through the web-based validation tool, • support from technical staff• information and trainings for not only standard and

technical issues, but also• support for implementation in the organisations and• supplier on boarding

The new way of working is efficient but needs to be communicated and accepted.

Some lessons learnt

• Usage of a standard is fundamental. It facilitates efficient processes for both contracting authorities and suppliers (especially SME:s) and lower the costs

• Strong leadership facilitates introduction and implementation of e-procurement in the organisations

• Clear benefits with e-procurement since better compliance with framework agreements and thus better prices

• Efficient e-procurement gives resources to the core activities

Thank you for your attention!Questions?

• Kerstin Wiss Holmdahl• Technical staff SFTI; tekniskt.kansli@skl.se• +46 8 452 79 87, +46 70 548 96 86 • www.skl.se• www.sfti.se