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Summary – Under pressure from ViDA, Peppol and national portals, e-invoicing forces Swiss companies to ensure regulatory compliance, interoperability, secure data flows and real-time VAT management to avoid delays, penalties and business disruptions.
They need to master UBL/CII/Factur-X formats, integrate secure gateways and connectors, automate regulatory monitoring and certificate management to guarantee the integrity and traceability of transactions.
E-invoicing must also be embedded at the heart of Procure-to-Pay and Order-to-Cash cycles to synchronize orders, invoicing and VAT reconciliation while strengthening certified electronic archiving.
Solution : deploy a modern ERP or a modular custom platform with Peppol connectivity, VAT dashboards and automated schema updates to safeguard your cross-border competitiveness.
Electronic invoicing is rolling out rapidly across Europe, driven by initiatives such as ViDA, Peppol, and increasingly stringent business-to-government (B2G) mandates. While Switzerland has not yet imposed it, its companies will sooner or later be involved in fully digitalized cross-border exchanges.
Beyond mere compliance, the strategic challenge is to anticipate this shift to ensure interoperability, secure VAT management, optimize Procure-to-Pay and Order-to-Cash cycles, and avoid any disruption in commercial relations with the European Union. This article details the applicable standards, their concrete impacts, and best practices to prepare your organization for this digital transformation.
Regulatory Evolution and European Standards
European regulations now mandate electronic invoicing for public procurement and are preparing to extend e-invoicing in business-to-business (B2B) settings. ViDA, Peppol, and national initiatives converge towards a harmonized framework that facilitates exchanges among member states.
ViDA and the B2G Directive
ViDA, or Variations in Digital Tenders, is the official standard format for electronic invoicing in European Union public procurement. It requires contracting authorities to accept only e-invoices in UBL or CII formats, ensuring uniform data flows.
For suppliers, this means adopting a specific format and implementing secure channels. Non-compliant invoices are systematically rejected, leading to severe payment delays and penalties from public authorities.
Since early 2023, several EU countries have doubled the frequency of their compliance checks, underscoring the growing importance of ViDA. The regular updates to the European framework require companies to maintain a regulatory and technical monitoring plan.
Peppol: Pan-European Network
The Peppol network (Pan-European Public Procurement OnLine) has become the preferred channel for exchanging electronic invoices between public and private entities. It is built on a certified access-point infrastructure, ensuring security and traceability.
Each company can connect to Peppol via a service provider, without geographic constraints. Exchanges then pass through brokers who validate format compliance and secure transmission.
Beyond public procurement, Peppol is gradually extending to B2B transactions. Several European states now encourage its use as the de facto standard to accelerate digitalization and reduce administrative costs.
National B2B Initiatives
In addition to B2G mandates, several countries are deploying national electronic invoicing portals for B2B. Italy and France, for example, have imposed their own platforms to centralize VAT and combat fraud.
These national portals require suppliers to register, adopt a proprietary format, or use an API to submit invoices. Failure to comply leads to automatic financial penalties.
The trend is toward unifying these initiatives under the Peppol model, but the pace varies by country. This diversity highlights the need for Swiss companies to monitor country-specific developments and maintain technological flexibility.
Illustrative Example
An industrial components manufacturer had to respond to a public tender in Spain. The absence of a dedicated Peppol module in their invoicing system led to automatic rejection of the electronic invoices sent.
This setback highlighted the importance of multichannel capability and the need to integrate ViDA and Peppol formats from the design stage of the information system. The company then developed a modular gateway, ensuring compliance regardless of the target national portal.
Concrete Impacts on Compliance and Transactions
The adoption of e-invoicing in Europe changes VAT handling, strengthens traceability, and imposes strict system interoperability. Swiss companies must anticipate these impacts to avoid payment delays, double data entry, and fiscal non-compliance.
Regulatory Compliance and VAT Harmonization
Electronic invoicing requires companies to report VAT in real time or near-real time, depending on the country. Automated checks cross-referencing public invoicing data significantly reduce leeway for errors.
To meet these requirements, accounting systems must generate certified electronic ledgers and produce detailed financial reporting for each transaction. VAT calculation must also adapt to each country’s specific rules (reduced rates, exemptions, thresholds).
In the absence of suitable tools, companies risk late corrections, tax penalties, or even in-depth audits. Manual double-entry processes prove too slow and error-prone.
System Interoperability
The proliferation of formats (UBL, CII, Factur-X, national format) makes exchanges complex without an aggregation and conversion gateway. Each incoming invoice may require prior normalization before integration into the ERP or accounting system.
Companies must therefore implement universal connectors or rely on specialized cloud platforms. These solutions ensure support for multiple schemas while maintaining a unified flow to internal systems.
This interoperability becomes a key performance factor. Poor integration can result in dedicated teams handling exceptional invoices, increasing costs and slowing payment cycles.
Flow Security and Operational Continuity
E-invoicing relies on secure channels and certificates to guarantee document authenticity and integrity. Implementing TLS protocols and electronic signatures is often mandatory.
Incident management (rejection, return, format error) must be anticipated with automated escalation workflows. Without these measures, an invoice stuck in a technical failure can block payment for weeks.
It is therefore crucial to monitor and alert in real time on the exchange status, as well as to maintain redundancy in access points to ensure resilience against outages or network updates.
Illustrative Example
A logistics service provider experienced a payment freeze from several major German accounts after the introduction of a national B2B portal. Invoices, although issued, were not recognized by the portal’s validator.
This situation revealed the lack of end-to-end testing before production roll-out. The company then chose a hybrid e-invoicing platform capable of simulating and validating submissions to each country, ensuring flow continuity.
Edana: strategic digital partner in Switzerland
We support companies and organizations in their digital transformation
Anticipating the Transformation of Procure-to-Pay and Order-to-Cash Processes
Automating Procure-to-Pay and Order-to-Cash cycles is essential to reduce costs and accelerate payments. Electronic invoicing becomes the central element of these processes, ensuring traceability and automated reconciliation.
Procure-to-Pay Automation
Procure-to-Pay covers the entire journey, from purchase requisition to purchase order issuance and invoice receipt. E-invoicing allows automatic matching between invoice and order.
Once the invoice is received, the system verifies quantities, amounts, and contractual terms without manual intervention. Discrepancies are flagged via an exception management workflow, reducing errors and speeding up approval.
Eliminating manual data entry lowers the error rate and frees procurement and accounting teams for higher-value tasks, such as supplier terms analysis or contract negotiations.
Digitalizing Order-to-Cash
In Order-to-Cash, invoice generation is synchronized with the order management and logistics systems. E-invoicing ensures each shipment produces a document compliant with the client’s required format.
The client automatically receives the invoice through a secure channel or via Peppol, accelerating acceptance and accounting entry. Invoice creation times often drop from several days to a few hours.
Payment tracking also becomes smoother. Thanks to standardized references, bank reconciliations are performed automatically, reducing manual follow-ups and improving working capital.
Electronic Archiving and Traceability
Certified electronic archiving is mandatory to ensure the legal validity of invoices. Systems must guarantee document integrity, availability, and readability throughout the statutory retention period.
Associated metadata (send date, recipient, validation status) are indexed to facilitate searches and expedite audits. A robust archiving system significantly reduces response times during tax inspections.
The traceability of invoice versions, approvals, and follow-ups provides evidence of compliance at each stage, minimizing the risk of disputes and adjustments.
Illustrative Example
A distributor automated its Order-to-Cash cycle with an e-invoicing platform connected to its ERP. Invoices issued to French and Dutch clients complied with both national portals without manual adaptation.
This automation reduced payment times from 18 to 10 days and eliminated data entry errors. The company thus improved its cash flow and strengthened customer satisfaction.
Choosing the Right Platform or ERP for a Competitive Advantage
Integrating a modern ERP or a custom platform harmonizes electronic invoicing flows and anticipates regulatory changes. The goal is to deploy a scalable, secure, and modular solution to capture long-term performance gains.
Integration Criteria for a Modern ERP
An ERP should offer a native e-invoicing module or a flexible API to connect to Peppol, eBill, and national portals. It must automatically handle incoming and outgoing formats and provide a centralized dashboard.
The ability to deploy updates without service interruption is essential. A good ERP offers independent microservices for invoicing, accounting, and workflow management, ensuring operational continuity.
Open-source compatibility or freedom from vendor lock-in must be verified to safeguard the investment and adapt to future regulatory obligations.
Custom Platform and E-Invoicing Connectivity
A custom platform can be built around open-source components and dedicated APIs to support ViDA, Peppol, and eBill formats. This approach offers high flexibility to tailor business workflows.
Embedded reporting modules should allow tracking of key indicators: rejection rates, average processing times, VAT summaries by country, and usage statistics by subsidiary.
From-scratch development, combined with proven components, ensures a solution aligned with internal processes and adaptable to strategic priorities.
Adaptation to Regulatory Changes
An e-invoicing project must include continuous regulatory monitoring and an automated mechanism to update XML or EDIFACT schemas. The ability to respond within days is a real competitive advantage.
Project teams should be multidisciplinary, combining business experts, architects, and compliance specialists to anticipate new fiscal requirements and technical standards.
With a modular backbone, each new obligation (format, signature, reporting) can be deployed without a complete solution overhaul, reducing costs and time-to-market.
Turn Electronic Invoicing into a Competitive Leverage
The rise of electronic invoicing in Europe is not just a regulatory constraint but an opportunity to optimize your financial processes, secure cross-border exchanges, and boost agility. By mastering the ViDA and Peppol standards, automating your Procure-to-Pay and Order-to-Cash cycles, and choosing a scalable ERP or custom platform, you ensure both growth and compliance.
Our experts, combining open-source, modular architectures, and agile governance, are at your disposal to support you in this strategic endeavor. Whether you need a maturity audit, ERP integration, or dedicated platform development, we tailor each solution to your business challenges.
