CEN ‘Core’ Cross Industry Invoice European Message Implementation Guideline

The Expert Group on e-Invoicing (EG), in its end-2009 final report, recommended that a common invoice content standard and data model, based on the UN/CEFACT Cross-Industry Invoice (CII), should be adopted. The EG recommended the development of a reference semantic data model to clarify the European context, in particular to make sure that those implementing this technical solution in Europe will be able to use it in a correct context. The ‘Core’ Cross Industry Invoice European Message Implementation Guideline is the result of that development.

The guide is in two parts. Part one describes the business requirements and data model for an electronic invoice that can be used in the most common invoicing situations. Part two maps those requirements to the UN/CEFACT CII XML standard.

The draft CWA, comments made by participants in the three CEN Workshops involved in this project that have already processed during the drafting of the guide, a comment form and full details are available at http://www.cen.eu/cen/Sectors/Sectors/ISSS/Activity/Pages/MUG.aspx

If you are involved in the implementation of e-Invoicing in Europe you are encouraged to review the draft and submit your comments. The Public Review period ends on 31st July 2011.

This article was originally published in Kevin Smith’s blog, “The Cloud Data Technologist” in June 2011.