What is the e-invoicing Directive?

Directive 2014/55/EU on electronic invoicing in public procurement applies to all Member States of the EU. It defines a common standard for e-invoices to reduce the complexity and legal uncertainty around e-invoicing and make cross-border trade relations easier. The implementation of the common standard is not just a recommendation. Beginning 18 April 2019, the deadline for Member States to implement the Directive, all EU public sector contracting authorities are required to receive and process e-invoices that comply with the standard.

Meeting the Directive's Authenticity of Origin & Integrity of Content Requirements with Advanced Electronic Signatures

The need to guarantee "authenticity of origin" (i.e., the identity of the invoice issuer) and "integrity of content" (i.e., the content of the invoice has not been changed from the moment of issuance) for e-invoices was established in EU Directive 2006/112/EC on Value Added Tax (VAT). All VAT registered entities must meet this requirement in order to maintain compliance. The "VAT Directive" specifies advanced electronic signatures as one method for doing this.

The new e-Invoicing Directive leverages the provisions established in the VAT Directive, including the ability to use advanced electronic signatures to guarantee invoice authenticity and integrity, and specifies all senders of e-invoices, not just VAT entities, must be able to guarantee this.

Advanced electronic signatures guarantee authenticity and integrity of content by:

• Uniquely identifying the sender of the invoice
• Creating a tamper-evident seal on the invoice contents, such that any changes made to the document after it was signed will be detectable

GlobalSign's Cloud-based Digital Signing Service Makes It Easy to Build Advanced Signatures into Your e-Invoicing Process

GlobalSign's fully managed and cloud-based Digital Signing Service (DSS) makes it easy to build advanced electronic signatures directly into existing e-invoice generation workflows without requiring significant development time, PKI expertise, hardware investment, or ongoing management. Powered by GlobalSign's global datacenters and world-class infrastructure, the service provides the throughput, availability, and fault tolerance needed to support high volume invoice generation.

• REST API provides all cryptographic components you need in one call, significantly simplifying the integration and minimizing initial development time and ongoing maintenance
• Fully managed, cloud-based service means no need for internal PKI or cryptographic expertise in-house and no hardware to invest in and manage
• Build advanced electronic signatures directly into e-invoicing generation processes to ensure compliance with the EU Directive
• All resulting signed invoices will show proof of the sender and integrity of the document

To Learn More - View the Datasheet on Using GlobalSign Digital Signing Service and Advanced Electronic Signatures to Help Meet the EU Standard for e-Invoicing

Key Benefits:

• Simple Cloud-Based Service For Easy Deployments

  Completely cloud-based, fully managed service for applying advanced electronic signatures - no hardware to manage or PKI expertise needed

• Build Advanced Signatures Into Your Invoicing Generation Process

  The Digital Signing Service integrates into existing e-invoicing generation workflows via one REST API call (unlike traditional deployments which require multiple calls), minimizing development and time resources

• Support High Volume Signing

  GlobalSign's service includes fault tolerance, high availability, high performance, and high throughput to support large scale invoice generation