EESPA reports over 1.25 billion e-invoices processed in 2015

The European E-Invoicing Service Providers Association (EESPA) has announced the results of its third annual survey, which was commissioned as part of a continuing commitment to support the rapid market growth of e-invoicing and to play its part in monitoring take-up.

According to the survey, 1252 million electronic invoices were processed and delivered in 2015 by members of EESPA, including TrueCommerce. This represents a significant growth of 27 per cent over 2014 volumes of 985 million.

The majority of invoices processed were B2B or B2G (Business-to-Business or Business-to-Government) invoices, representing a total number of 766 million invoices and an increase of 23 per cent. However, the EESPA members also contributed to a rapid growth of e-invoicing in the B2C market; 485 million invoices equaling an increase of 33 per cent.

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 figures represent an indication of the total footprint represented by the EESPA community in relation to the growing volumes of e-invoices now being processed at the expense of traditional paper documents.

In 2015 the figures reveal an important growth in B2B and B2G transactions over the previous year, and the same for the B2C sector. 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.

EESPA service providers are making a very significant contribution to the adoption of electronic invoicing across Europe and globally. Service provider networks and services to buyers and suppliers contribute a growing and sizeable element of total electronic invoice volume and these services are more often than not preferred to direct connections between suppliers and buyers, which can be cumbersome to manage and do not take advantage of ‘network’ effects.

TrueCommerce has been member of EESPA since 2012.

Find the complete press release here. Further details on EESPA can be found here.