Oxalis facilitated by NORSTELLA

​

For many years, Norway has been at the forefront when it comes to putting in place common solutions for the exchange of electronic trade documents in Europe, through the establishment of the Peppol standard. Several European countries (and in Asia – for example, Singapore) have in recent years made Peppol their national infrastructure for electronic invoicing.

Which trade documents are we talking about?

​

• Orders and order confirmations

• Packing slips

• Invoices [1]

 

So that these kinds of trade documents easily can be sent and received across companies, institutions and individuals, we have established a digital infrastructure for electronic trade in Europe. This network is called Peppol (Pan European Public Procurement Online).

 

To become part of the Peppol network, companies must go via a so-called “access point”. This is a kind of electronic post office that sends and receives trade documents on your behalf. So, an eInvoice is sent into the Peppol network via the sender's access point and finds its own way to the recipient's access point, which places the invoice into the recipient's financial system. This way, both the sender and the recipient can enjoy all the benefits that come with electronic invoicing (see below about four specific benefits of eInvoices.

 

Everyone who implements the Peppol standard can implement such an access point and thereby communicate with everyone else in the Peppol network. The transfers that currently flow through this network go through either access points based on software from commercial software houses or on "open source" software. Today, more than 50% of all such transfers in the world go through an access point based on the Oxalis software.

 

The Oxalis software has been developed in Norway by Difi over more than 5 years. The EU has also contributed and financed some of the development, because they want a secure and efficient infrastructure for digital trade. When the acquisition part of Difi was transferred to DFØ, as of 1 September this year, it was decided that they would no longer engage in this. They eventually found a safe haven for Oxalis at the NorStella Foundation – a neutral, not-for-profit, member-run foundation.

 

[1] When agreements between parties have been entered into and implemented, invoices must be paid and money transferred between the parties' bank connections. Then the banks and the authorities, such as Økokrim (the Norwegian National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime) / the Norwegian Financial Intelligence Unit (EFE) get involved to be as efficient as possible in the analysis of payment transfers in Norway in order to stop attempts at money laundering and the financing of terrorism. Here, too, there is good cooperation between the private and public sectors through the DSOP programme.

​

On 19 November, a "founding meeting" was held for the Oxalis Community with 50 participants from all over the world – mostly from Europe, but also Asia. The 40 new member companies in the Oxalis Community (and, thereby, NORSTELLA) include Visma, Telenor and Basware , and they formally decided to create the Oxalis Community. The official owner of the Oxalis software will, when the GitHub ownership is transferred (before 1.12), be us here at NORSTELLA.

 

Message taken from GitHub (see more details at www.oxalis.network):

​