Public-private partnerships II - just words?

Another area where public-private partnership at some point may have had challenges is e-invoicing. Some have seen a danger that the PEPPOL-pilot for public sector procurement in EU will lead to the public sector only accepting e-invoices in the UBL-format - at the same time as UNCEFACT/TBG1 is finalizing the user guidelines for Cross Industry Invoice V2 intented for generic b2b use.

This should not be a risk as the PEPPOL project started off before CII V2 was around - but has evaluated CIIv2 and seen that it delivers what public sector invoicing is needing.

It would of course be rather grotesque is the public sector would only accept their own e-invoicing format. It would again slow down adoption - only benefit e-invoicing service providers reformatting business. Same effect as mandatory digital signatures have had.