Service Suite - Electronic invoices to public institutions
           - How do I create and send an electronic invoice to a Public Danish Institution?

From the 1st of February 2005 Public Danish Instutions demands that you send your invoices and credit notes to them electronically in the OIOXML format as defined by the danish ministry of science and the danish ministry of finance. If you company trades with Public Danish Institutions, such as e.g. schools, kindergartens, hospitals, ministries, prisons etc. - you have to be prepared!

Even though the bill passed the Danish government and became law in December 2003, it can still be rather difficult to figure out what to do and how to send invoices and credit notes electronically to a Public Danish Institution.

This is why we have made an effort of making it as easy as possible to send your invoices and credit notes electronically to these institutions, by using the sales order module in Service Suite.

Let us take a look at how Service Suite can be used to send an electronic invoice to a Public Danish Institution.

 New informations about your customers.

The data-format (OIOXML) which defines an electronic invoice, requires a few new informations about your customers, which can be maintained in the customer module. This is why we find our demonstration customer in order to enter these new informations.

On the tab: "Other info." you can now enter an "EAN number" and select whether the customer requires e-invoices or not. The "EAN number" is a unique identification number which is used to identify your customer when we send the electronic invoice later on.

A Public Danish Institution is required to supply you with their EAN number and it will not be possible to send the invoice or credit note electronically if this number is not registered on the customer.

When we have entered the EAN number and selected that the customer requires e-invoices, we save those informations by pressing the button: "OK".

Now this is done, lets go into the sales order module and create an invoice for the customer.

 Creating a sales order.

Now we need to create a sales order to our customer. The sales order is created as usual except for a few things that you need to have in mind when the order must be send as an electronic invoice. The order could look like this:

Because the order has to be sent as an electronic invoice to a Public Danish Institution, you must supply an invoice number as well as an invoice date on the order. A payment date should be supplied as well if you wish to receive payment for your products or services.

If your customer supplies you with a requisition number you must enter this number as well as the name of the person placing the order, otherwise yuor customer can legally postpone the payment. If these informations are not supplied you do not need to enter anything in these fields.

The invoice number and date should naturally match the informations in your ERP-system, as well as the remaining informations on the order.

When the order is identical with the invoice in your ERP-system, you select the the type of the order should be: "Invoice" and save the order.

IMPORTANT! Please note that when an order is saved as an invoice or credit note, it will no longer be possible to edit, export or otherwise transfer this order to your ERP-system.

Now we have created the invoice, we are ready to send it to our customer.

 Basic Configuration of Electronic Invoices.

Before we can send the electronic invoice there are a few things that needs to be configured, before this is possible. In order for you to be able to receive payments for your products or services you have to define som informations about your company and how you wish to receive payments.

These settings naturally only needs to be entered the first time you wish to send an electronic invoice, and they can be found by selecting the menu: "Electronic invoice" in the "Settings" menu. The configuration dialog could look like this:

In this dialog you enter the informations about your own company. When this is done you select the tab: "Payment methods" which will make the dialog look like this:

Here you can select how you wish to receive payments from your customers. Currently it is only possible to select "Direct bank transfer" in Service Suite as almost everybody is capable of receiving payments in this way.

Then you enter the name of your bank, as well as the sort-code and account-number of your account.

Now all that needs to be done is clicking the button: "Finish", and we are ready to send our invoice electronically to our customer.

 Sending an electronic invoice or creditnote.

Now we have configured the required settings, we find our way back to the sales order module in Service Suite, and select those invoices that we wish to send. This could look like this:

When we have selected the invoices or credit notes that we wish to send, we click the link: "Send electronic invoice" in the icon-bar. This will launch following dialog:

In this dialog you can follow the processing and shipment of your electronic invoices or credit notes.

When everything has been processed, you press the button: "OK" and the selected invoices and credit notes has now been sent to your customer.

 The Invoice or Creditnote has now been sent Electronically.

After reading this page, you might get the impression that it is a bit tedious to send your invoices electronically to Public Danish Institutions, but in fact most of what's been described on this page is configuration that only has to be done once.

When Service Suite has been configured for sending electronic invoices, all you need to do to send an invoice or credit note is:

1. Create your order and save it as an invoice or creditnote.
2. Select the invoice or creditnote from the list.
3. Select "Send electronic invoice" from the icon-bar.
4. Your invoices and creditnotes has now been sent.

Could this be any easier?