How we Connected the Treasury to the Peppol e-Invoicing Network

Posted by Link4 Team on 09/11/2021

In 2020, the Australian Commonwealth announced the mandatory adoption of the Peppol e-Invoicing Framework for government agencies by July 2022. As one of the largest government departments in Australia, the Treasury was keen to be  an early adopter of e-Invoicing and was one of the first federal government departments to start the Request for Quote (RFQ) process for an Access Point provider.

Following a competitive tender process, the Treasury selected Link4 as their successful Access Point provider and work commenced in November 2020. The Treasury was using the latest version of TechnologyOne CiAnywhere software, an ERP system that Link4 had already tested the integration with prior to this project. Link4 were able to work with the Treasury and TechnologyOne efficiently due to the flexibility of the Link4 architecture, and Link4’s iterative and agile methodology. This was the first time that an e-Invoicing module was implemented into the TechnologyOne CiAnywhere platform.

Link4 invested significant resources and expertise into the development and testing phases of this project, to ensure the Treasury CiAnywhere software was able to operate seamlessly with the data received through the Link4 Access Point. Link4 ran all the required validations and test cases, to ensure that the data received matched Peppol specifications. When suppliers send their invoices through the Peppol network, the invoice data arrives directly into the e-Invoicing module within the Treasury’s TechnologyOne CiAnywhere platform through their secure API. In case of an invoice failure, both Link4 support and Treasury teams get a notification, so both teams can work together to resolve the issue.

Before going Live, the Treasury team were invited to attend a training session to introduce them to e-Invoicing, learn more about the Peppol framework, and how to use the Link4 Dashboard and Access Point.

Link4 Dashboard

The Treasury can use the Link4 Dashboard to view all the transactions they receive. The dashboard allows the team to see reports like the total number of transactions, invoices received from a specific supplier, or ones received on a certain date. The Treasury can also see the invoice details along with the PDF received from the supplier. They were able to customise the Link4 notification system so they could receive an email highlighting the transactions received for the day.

Link4 was the first Access Point provider to integrate the e-Invoicing module within TechnologyOne software. The Treasury has been receiving e-Invoices through their TechnologyOne CiAnywhere software since December 2020.

Onboarding suppliers

Link4 has been working closely with the Treasury to onboard their suppliers to do e-Invoicing and increase the adoption. Suppliers to the Treasury are able to receive a payment within 5 days and through a more accurate and secure method of invoice processing.

It took 4 weeks to enable The Treasury’s e-Invoicing capabilities, which included extensive testing, implementation and training. Since the implementation of e-Invoicing for The Treasury, Link4 has provided similar solutions for DISER, AOFM, APRA, Sports Commission and Geoscience Australia. Delivery for these other government agencies took less than 2 weeks due to the extensive testing already done on the TechnologyOne platform.

Link4 has extensive experience in building mappings and business document translations for different enterprise systems, such as TechnologyOne, Civica, Microsoft and SAP. If your government department or agency needs to switch to e-Invoicing, get in touch at [email protected]