In order for companies to send electronic invoices, they must connect to an access point in the e-commerce network. An access point is a standard infrastructure for sending and receiving invoices and e-commerce documents in the electronic file format EHF (Electronic Trading Format) across national borders.
The Norwegian standard is based on the European system, which is known as PEPPOL (Pan-European Procurement Online). This is a network of access points for sending electronic invoices across national borders.
The Norwegian Agency for Public and Financial Management (DFØ) is the PEPPOL authority in Norway and is responsible for approving new access points.
Everyone chooses the access point they want to use. You are connected to the PEPPOL network through the access point and can send and receive invoices to/from anyone else who is connected to the infrastructure. Thus, both the sender and the recipient can gain from all the benefits that are associated with electronic invoicing. The service provider checks the national address register ELMA to see which access point the invoice recipient belongs to and then distributes the invoice file to the appropriate recipient.
Access points are a good way of automating the online invoicing process and offer an easy entry point to using complete e-commerce communication.
When using Cegal Multi Channel Invoice, you can access consignments of eFaktura B2B via an access point. In Multi Channel Invoice, we receive an invoice file containing the organisation number of the end customer. This number is then checked against the ELMA register to see whether the customer has registered for the receipt of eFaktura B2B. If the customer is registered in ELMA, the invoice will be sent directly to the recipient's accounting system via an access point. If the customer is not registered for such receipt in ELMA, the invoice will be forwarded in the distribution flow, either to another digital channel or directly to print.