The history and foundations of Franco-German cooperation
The digital Franco-German cooperation in the field of electronic invoicing was initiated at the Franco-German Digital Conference in 2014 and has been continued ever since. The common goal was and is to pave the way for the further development of electronic invoicing. In addition to pooling resources, the partner countries focused on developing a common technical standard. This standard was primarily intended to meet the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises concerning electronic invoicing.
Essential bases for the development of a common format for electronic invoicing were and are the EU Directive 2014/55/EU and the EU standard EN16931 published in 2017. On these two bases, the experts of the French National Forum for Electronic Invoicing and Marketplace & Public E-procurement (FNFE-MPE) and the volunteer specialists of the Forum for Electronic Invoicing Germany (FeRD) have developed technical implementation methods for a common standard for electronic invoice exchange.
To advance the joint promotion of electronic invoicing and to coordinate further developments, a joint Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was drawn up in 2019 by the FNFE-MPE and the Arbeitsgemeinschaft für wirtschaftliche Verwaltung e.V. (AWV). The MoU forms the basis for Franco-German cooperation and contains, for example, regulations on the joint promotion of electronic invoicing, on data format, on the further development of profiles and technical documents as well as on publications. The joint maintenance and further development of standards and documents with a mutual communication process were also established.
Publication of a common hybrid e-invoicing standard
On 24th March 2020 a joint version ZUGFeRD 2.1 / Factur-X 1.0 was released, which is freely available and technically identical. Thanks to full technical synchronization, the cross-border transmission, and processing of electronic invoices between Germany and France is guaranteed.
The five profiles of the standard, which take into account different user requirements, represent an important common feature. The BASIC profile provides the basic information of an invoice that can be used, for example, in Business to Business (B2B) or Business to Customer (B2C) transactions. The EN16931 (COMFORT) profile also contains all the invoice information required by the EU directive and EU standard. This profile is therefore explicitly intended for invoice exchange with public sector customers (B2G). The EXTENDED profile, which incorporates the EN 16931 profile, also enables the integration of specific additional information into the electronic invoice. Besides, two further profiles (Minimum and Basic WL) have been created, which are booking guides in France but cannot be used as full invoices in Germany. Factur-X and ZUGFeRD 2.0 are thus largely identical.
Further steps, such as a transnational workshop at which French and German experts exchange technical content, the exchange of experiences with electronic invoicing in the private and public sectors, and the linking of different systems and formats in electronic invoicing, are ongoing.