EESPA commissioned this fourth annual survey among its members as part of a continuing commitment to supporting the rapid market growth of e-invoicing and to play its part in monitoring take-up. The majority of invoices processed were B2B or B2G invoices (1035 million invoices in total in 2016), although the EESPA membership also has a significant involvement in the delivery of B2C invoices (580 million invoices in total in 2016).
This year for the first time EESPA receives responses to the question contained in the Survey ‘what is the average value of an invoice processed by your firm?’. The figure derived from the relative limited range of responses was EUR 5868. On this basis, the total value of the reported invoices processed was EUR 9 477 billion.
According to EESPA, the data is essential for European authorities in tracking the success of their policy initiatives in e-invoicing, and also signifies to those who have not yet started the e-invoicing journey, the value that e-invoicing makes to cost reduction, competitiveness, liquidity generation, and environmental benefits.
In 2016, the figures reveal an important growth in B2B and B2G transactions over the previous year, and the same for the B2C sector. Even after allowing for the increased participation in the survey B2B/B2G volumes grew by 18 % on a like for like basis and 16% for B2C volumes. Given that we stand on the threshold of the move to e-invoicing by EU public administrations based on the provisions of Directive 2014/55/EU, the future should bring accelerating volumes based on the critical mass that is already evident in these numbers.
The aggregated value of invoices processed by respondents to the survey, represents a growing proportion of the European and global GDP. Of course, gross invoice values cannot be equated with GDP owing to the need to eliminate the multiple counting of factor inputs contained in the total value of invoices generated in an economy’s supply chain to arrive at an accurate estimate of the true ‘value-added’ represented by GDP measures. Next year the average value exercise will be expanded.
The results are based on a survey of individual EESPA members completed in June 2017. Members provided statistics on the basis of actual transaction volumes for the calendar year 2016 to a trusted third party who collected the individual figures on a confidential basis and calculated the aggregated volumes.
EESPA members were asked to report the volume i.e. number of e-invoices delivered by them to buyers connected to their network or service, and also volumes delivered to buyers connected to another service provider. Each member was asked to carefully identify only truly electronic invoices, irrespective of the process through which the invoice or the invoice data were collected from suppliers. The average value of an invoice was provided by a number of respondents by simply dividing the total face value of invoices processed by the number of invoices processed.
The majority of EESPA members participated in the survey. For the latest year there was a substantial increase in the number of members reporting their figures.
EESPA was formed in 2011 as an international not-for-profit association. It acts as a trade association at a European level for a large and dynamic community of e-invoicing service providers, drawn from organisations that provide network, business outsourcing, financial, technology, and EDI (electronic data interchange) services. It focuses on public policy and compliance issues, the creation of an interoperable eco-system and championing the widespread adoption of e-invoicing for the benefit of economic efficiency and growth.
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