Spain Ministry of Industry to promote e-billing

 

The Ministry of Industry in Spain has spoken of their plans to encourage the use of electronic facturasbeing used by businesses and the general public alike in preferrence over traditional paper facturas.

A €550,000 fund has been allocated by central government in order to implement this proposal, and has been jointly financed by the European Regional Development Fund. An awareness campaign specifically to target businesses has been drawn up, and in excess of 80,000 will be contacted directly.

Certain agreements have already been made with a number of Spain's larger utility companies in order to encourage their clients to elect to receive 'e-billing' instead of traditional paper billing. Receiving an electronic invoice had been proved to be both advantageous for companies in reduced printing and mailing costs, and for the environment with the reduction of the use of paper and chemicals associate with the printing industries.

The Ministry estimates that currently only 45% of companies exchange information electronically, and of these only 51% are willing to receive electronic invoices and only 25.1% issue them.