E-Invoicing and the use of Peppol in Finland
E-Invoicing

E-Invoicing and Peppol in Finland

| | Product Manager software applications/services electronic business data exchange, SEEBURGER
E-Invoicing and Peppol in Finland

E-Invoicing has been in use in Scandinavia for a long time. Since the 1990s E-Invoicing has been promoted for process simplifications and cost efficiency. Since 2010 Business-to-Government (B2G) E-Invoicing has been mandatory in Finland. Finland has been relying on the country-specific formats Finvoice und TEAPPSXML with a 4 corner delivery model similar to Peppol.

Finvoice und TEAPPSXML for E-Invoicing in Finland

Electronic invoices can be sent to the public administration in Finland using the Finvoice und TEAPPSXML standard formats. Both standards have been updated to the latest version 3.0 in order to comply with the European standard for e-invoicing. The Finvoice format is also the most widely used format for B2B invoicing in Finland. By Law 241/2019[1], Finland has just extended the statutory right, which has just come into effect on April 1st 2020, for businesses from the private sector to insist on receiving invoices from their suppliers in electronic format. These business-to-business (B2B) e-invoices need to comply with the EN 16931 and Finnish standards.

Invoice recipients are allowed to reject any electronic invoices e.g. received in simple PDF format, or even structured data formats which do not comply with the required standards known from the B2G mandate.

  • From April 2020, private businesses in Finland have the right to request electronic invoices in line with the European standard from their suppliers.
  • Due to the recent coronavirus pandemic, older versions of Finvoice and TEAPPSXML will be accepted which do not comply with the European standard until further notice.

This information is from the State Treasury of Finland in March 2020.

Even if Peppol is not among the permitted standards for e-invoicing towards public administration in Finland for now, we expect this will follow in the future. An indicator for this might be the growing number of private companies registered in Finland for Peppol BIS Billing 3.0.

Finland has progressed quite far in the adoption of e-invoicing when it comes to B2B due to a couple of reasons:

  • Creating forums for e-invoicing service providers that has resulted, among others, in the Tieke list. The Tieke list is practically a library where users can see which service provider and format a particular company is using. As an association, the Tieke list offers a forum for e-invoicing service providers. This eases the on-boarding of new trading partners and enables many self-service capabilities.
  • E-invoicing service providers have undergone extensive cooperation through so called interoperability agreements: service providers, typically without charging each other, allow for e-invoices to be exchanged between them. This creates a local network in which two companies can send and receive invoices between each other even though they are connected to different service providers.

SEEBURGER Cloud Services as Service Provider for E-Invoicing in Finland

SEEBURGER Cloud Services enables the quick and easy sending of EU-compliant invoices to public administrations in Finland and prepares you for Peppol – as it becomes more and more common in the Nordics.

Webcast-On-Demand

Learn more about new E-Invoicing requirements in 2021!

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[1] https://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/alkup/2019/20190241

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Gerrit Onken

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Gerrit Onken has been at SEEBURGER since 2010 as a product manager for software applications and for electronic data exchange services for the business sector. He focuses on solutions for SAP, electronic invoicing (e-invoicing) and innovations for digitalizing business and technical processes for globally-active customers. Originally a banker, Gerrit Onken went on to graduate in business administration, majoring in industrial management and business informatics. After working in the financial sector, he worked as a manager and project manager from 2004 to 2010 for one of the top five corporate consultancies, working with international BPOs in the banking and automotive industries.