(Amended) Thirty-eight public bodies, belonging to 12 secretariats-general, currently maintain pilot projects for the adoption of the electronic invoice. With different rhythms of execution, ongoing projects test the migration to electronic invoices in a small number of organizations, in a also restricted set of suppliers, with the aim of later generalizing to all ministerial entities.
Today the sharing of the first steps of this experimentation period was done at the initiative of UMIC at the Picoas Forum with the collaboration of some of the entities involved, including the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education and the Ministry of Finance, through their respective general secretariats.
PCM, which among those present is more advanced in the testing process, already has the pilot applied to communications and electricity already underway. In the long term, the electronic invoice will be extended to all categories of products already involved in the body’s electronic purchase process and in a third and final phase to all areas. At MCES the testing process is starting and in Economics it starts at the end of the month.
In the body supervised by Manuel Pinho, the general secretary alone processes 6 thousand invoices annually. Sixty percent of the invoices received are concentrated in the companies that will now cooperate in the pilot: EDP, CTT and PT.
With the total adoption of the electronic invoice, the General Secretariat for Economy would have productivity gains of around 35 percent. In the medium term, the organism’s objectives are more modest, as there is an awareness that the total generalization of the electronic invoice will be slow. However, only its operation with the pilot companies already allows productivity gains in the order of 12 percent.
Also participating in this session was the Public Security Police, whose pilot starts next week with PT SI as a technological partner.
The adoption of the electronic invoice in the Public Administration became possible after the introduction of the supporting legislation and will be a cost saving vehicle for the State, while it is expected to make the entire system for issuing and receiving invoices more efficient. making the respective payments. According to UMIC on average, each public entity receives approximately 2 thousand invoices annually.
The number was determined based on a survey carried out by the Knowledge Society Agency with around 250 public entities, where it is also concluded that more than 2.6 million invoices are processed annually (between received and sent in these organizations). In relation to fixed communications alone, the State receives 42 thousand invoices monthly, which together generate more than one million sheets of paper annually.
In addition to public bodies, 18 suppliers and customers from the State participate in this pilot.
The Government has set as a goal the preferential adoption of electronic invoices for the issuance and receipt of invoices by the end of 2006.
Editorial Note [13-11-2006 13:09]: The news was changed to add some details provided by UMIC.
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