Preparing for EU ViDA

We reported a few months ago the serious issue posed by the impending EU ViDA legislation to our industry and since then, Odette has been nominated as an official CEN liaison organisation and is working in CEN TC434 (the technical body charged by the EU with developing eInvoicing standards), to ensure that automotive requirements can be covered in the upcoming legislation.

Members of the Odette management team are currently participating in various CEN Working Groups to modify the EN 16931 invoice standard. This standard was originally developed for B2G exchanges and as such, does not cater for sophisticated automotive supply chain invoicing scenarios. The objective is to identify missing and incompatible data structures and create building blocks which will be used as extensions to EN 16931 to mirror the electronic invoices currently used in the automotive industry.

To provide the input for this work, an Odette eInvoicing Expert Group has been convened and is currently identifying message mapping issues in order to develop components that will be used to create the automotive extensions. The Group will then review the upcoming regulations and advise on ways the automotive community might most easily achieve compliance with those regulations.

Our ultimate aim, however, is to ensure that the current widespread exchange of invoices using EDIFACT standards can continue under the ViDA legislation.