Experienced EDI gateway provider MessageXchange has been certified as the first Peppol Access Point service provider for e-invoicing in Australia and New Zealand. Peppol is a data interchange format initially developed in Europe that eliminates the need for hard copy or PDF invoices.

MessageXchange’s Access Point lets organisations send and receive Peppol e-invoices electronically, removing the need for data entry or scanning and extracting data from PDF invoices. Organisations will only need to supply invoices and purchase orders to a single access point, which will then connect on to all companies/organisations that accept the Peppol format.

However, organisations looking to deliver Peppol invoices will need to ensure their financial/ERP software is able to export in that format, or engage a service provider to convert from CSV or flat file formats, a service that MessageXchange also provides.

The Australian Taxation Office and Inland Revenue NZ are strongly promoting the adoption of Peppol, which would provide unparalleled visibility into business and oversight of all economic activity. It is believed the first government agencies to accept Peppol invoices will be announced soon.

Mark Stockwell, Director e-Invoicing at the ATO believes there will be 20 Peppol access points by mid 2020 and there will be a choice of e-invoicing solutions for SMEs by the end of 2020.

He told the Australian Business Software Industry Association annual conference in October that service providers and government would need to work together to boost take up and adoption. He suggested some action would need to be taken to minimise upfront investment for small business.

The Australian Commonwealth government is firmly behind the uptake of Peppol, and has announced that once it is accepted by government agencies it will commit to paying Peppol e-invoices within five days.

This inducement will be a strong motivation for government suppliers, however the commercial sector has been resistant in Europe where uptake outside government is not high.

The Italian government has taken the strongest approach in Europe by mandating use of Peppol for all commercial and government invoices.

John Delaney, Managing Director, MessageXchange believes a quick uptake of Peppol in Australian and New Zealand is quite possible.

“MessageXchange is thrilled to be the first Peppol-certified Access Point service provider in Australia and New Zealand. E-invoicing can provide huge efficiencies and cost savings to businesses, being 60 to 80 per cent more efficient than paper-based processing.

“Peppol is moving away from being Eurocentric to become a global standard with the uptake in ANZ and Singapore. At a recent Singapore conference, Malaysia, Taiwan and Philippines all attended and expressed keen interest," said Delaney.

 “If the market is fragmented it’s hard to get critical mass. We have government as a dominant player here which will really encourage adoption.”

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