But also let me get this straight, there is an actual EU standard for invoices? Why the does nobody follow this and I have to keep asking people to put the fucking VAT ID onto it like I'm a broken record?
If tidiness and neatness are not a good enough argument to mandate this taxpayer savings, time efficiency, and better software should be.
Companies who insist on being precious about their favored invoice format can invest their own time and money on conversation tools that let them convert invoices they get into whatever format they like for their own internal records and convert them to meet the standard again when sending invoices out. That leaves them free to use what they want without making everyone else deal with their mess.
Besides, many standards have been created over the past 20 years, yet most invoices are still only sent as PDF.
People invent their own standard to make their own lives easier at the cost of making everyone else's lives miserable which is exactly what the European Committee for Standardization was intended to prevent.
The invoicing standard is an attempt to mitigate reverse charge fraud by gathering more machine-readable data. Some countries even demand that b2b invoices are sent to the country, which then dispatches a copy to the recipient.
Knowing this background, it's pretty clear why the EU is making it mandatory.
Personally, in the abstract I like the idea to mandate the use of an open standard, I think we have way too many inefficiencies from treating many things as text documents that could be data structures. I don't like this particular standard though, it's bloated and the result of a typical top-down process.
I much prefer it when there are competing standards for a while, and one or a couple of winner emerge on technical merits. THEN I have no objections to a regulatory body picking a standard and mandating it.
You must be new to the internet /s
A company does not gain anything by sending "better" invoices that follow a standard. Only if they receive standardized invoices, but usually not enough to pay extra for it. The fact that standardized invoices haven't happened yet without legislation should be proof of that
>needless complexity
First time?
But yes, for commercial offers, presumption of conformity mean you have to pay for norms to adhere to law. Big fail.
Especially since non-commercial but persistent and public, not "for profit", is still surmised in e.g. warranty laws. (E.g. geschäftsmäßige Nutzung / usage with said two terms, even for F/LOSS)
For example, in the USA https://www.rcfp.org/briefs-comments/astm-v-upcodes-inc/
This is an especially hot topic in the EU in medical device regulations: https://www.bsigroup.com/en-GB/insights-and-media/insights/b...
That said, I actually agree with you - it's crazy that we need to pay for a stupid standard document.
The article nor the talk appear to reference the XML standard that EN 16931 is built upon: Universal Business Language, https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=... - which is freely available. Examples can be found here: https://github.com/Tradeshift/tradeshift-ubl-examples/tree/m... . It is a good standard and yes it's complex, but it is not complicated by accident. I would any day recommend UBL over IDOC, Tradacom, EDIFACT and the likes.
blipvert•1h ago
blipvert•1h ago
tnorgaard•1h ago