Exploring Country Maturity in Billentis’ 2015 E-Invoicing Report

Relative e-invoicing adoption and maturity varies dramatically between countries and regions – and has not followed the adoption curve of broader purchase-to-pay (P2P) solutions where traction started first in North America with significant recent adoption in the UK, the European continent and now, the rest of the world as well. In contrast, e-invoicing adoption grew out of the European market, especially in the Nordic region.

According to Billentis’ 2015 e-invoicing report, the following countries are representative of the 4 categories – leaders, average, developing and laggards – in e-invoicing adoption:

• Leaders include: Norway, Finland, Sweden, Brazil, Chile and Mexico.
• Average includes:
  • (Outside of Europe) Canada, United States, Argentina, Australia, South Africa, Kazakhstan, Bolivia, Peru and Columbia.
  • (Within and around Europe) Spain, Iceland, France, Germany, UK, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Turkey, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, Liechtenstein, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
• Developing includes: Russia, India, China, Japan, Algeria, Egypt, Iran and Pakistan.
• Laggards include: Venezuela, Greenland, Mongolia, Afghanistan and most of Africa.

The trends are largely aligned around either pragmatic (e.g., business) or government adoption requirements. For example, more mature countries in Latin America have made investments in recent years primarily because of government and tax requirements. In North America, the primary driver of adoption has been the competitive advantages that e-invoicing can bring rather than just adhering to government requirements.