[vesinisa]

The purpose of this is to reduce manual work. In Finland, we've had mandatory electronic invoicing in all B2B transactions since 2020 (based on domestic standard called Finvoice which is very similar to PEPPOL.) It is really great. My company is 100% paper-free. When I get an invoice, it pops up to my accountants system and I just go and accept it with one click in their web UI. After that the invoice will be paid from my bank account on the due date and entered into the books automatically.

Gone are the error-prone days of manually copying account numbers, invoice reference codes and amounts from PDFs and paper mail, and scanning those invoices for book keeping.

The standards for e-invoicing are open but it's true that you need to hire a trusted intermediary to process your messages. Anyone can become a processor so it's not a closed system but I bet there's some auditting required before you get a license - which makes sense.

Overall changes like these initially mean some expenses to businesses but once the system is up and working as intended it reduces lots of mandatory pencil pushing type work, bringing savings throughout the economy to all companies.

[B1zz3y_]

You're right that the main basis is the automation part. That being said they could have gone with a system that does not require a yearly 2K fee to just be a part of the peppol group.

That's my only negative point about this whole system is that money is being pulled away from freelancers and small SME's for every invoice they send.

The big guys just setup an access point and pay the yearly fee as it is nothing compared to their revenue.

[vesinisa]

Most companies don't need to become processors, only those who specialise in providing financial services to others.

Unless you have a very small company you already probably have an accountant or bookkeeper. In most situations, the e-invoicing is provided by your accountant as part of their comprehensive financial management solution. I pay about 120€/mo. for a solution that includes bookkeeping, electronic and traditional invoicing, electronic and traditional expenses management, salary/payroll and all tax declarations for my 1-person company. The effort saved/cost ratio is bonkers, and in the grand scheme of things the monthly fee is marginal.

There might be indeed a usecase for SMEs that don't want to buy a comprehensive financial management solution and instead want to send their e-invoices manually. It's probably a pretty niche usecase and someone could probably provide a "proxy" processor for something like 100€/year. It's still a very marginal cost for almost any imaginable going concern. And to receive any money you anyway need a bank account, which is not free for companies.

> That's my only negative point about this whole system is that money is being pulled away from freelancers and small SME's for every invoice they send.

I don't pay anything to send or receive e-invoices on top of my monthly plan. But I do pay a very small fee to my bank for each transaction they process.