Case Study

Department Of Education and Skills Ireland
e-Invoicing using Peppol Standard

Executive Summary

The Department of Education and Skills is a department of the Irish State with responsibility for education and training including the Education and Training Boards or ETBs.

The Department of Education and Skills (DES) is implementing an e-Invoicing solution from DCS using the Peppol standard (Pan-European Public Procurement Online).
The solution delivers electronic invoices to over 900 schools, colleges and education centres in Ireland. It is expected that over 100,000 invoices will be received through the gateway by March 2017.

Challenges

Within the 16 ETBs there exists a wide range of IT sophistication from virtually manual to state-of-the-art ERP systems.

The key challenges were to provide the following:

• a single gateway to which suppliers send electronic invoices.
• single access point where each ETB can access and process e-invoices easily across a range of ERP systems.
• generate detailed Management Information from the line information gathered on invoices.

DCS Solution

DCS worked with the Department, their Suppliers and other PEPPOL Service Providers to provide a complete solution for the sector.
The implementation included the following:
DCS providing the PEPPOL Access Point services in accordance with the requirements prescribed by the PEPPOL Transport Infrastructure Agreement. DCS is registered as an Access Point Provider with the EU PEPPOL Authority.

A dedicated team was assigned to assist with on-boarding key suppliers to deliver invoices

electronically. For smaller suppliers, a number of free portals are available so invoices can be entered online.

The DCS solution provides integration for all of the P2P and ERP systems across the sector including SAP, Sun/Infor and other finance systems.

In implementing the project, DCS has taken full responsibility for the setup, security and management of all PEPPOL related access for the sector.

DCS is providing the Department with full support through its ITIL certified service desk to resolve any issues as they arise.

In Phase II of the project the Department is using DCS’s on-boarding methodology to quickly increase the number of suppliers who submit their invoices electronically using the PEPPOL system. As part of this methodology, DCS engage with other PEPPOL Service Providers thus ensuring as wide an uptake as possible

Results

The Single Access Point is up and running. It is expected that over 100,000 invoices will be received through the gateway by March 2017. An ongoing rollout to suppliers is in progress with very positive results.
All Users in the sector are now fully trained and are using the system.
The Department is seeing significant benefits from the very detailed MIS generated from the system.