How Singapore drives e-invoicing adoption with 'queen bees'

From this November, Singapore would require newly incorporated businesses which are voluntarily registered for goods service tax (GST) to be onboarded on InvoiceNow to transmit invoice data directly to the tax authority for tax administration purposes.

InvoiceNow is the government-backed nationwide e-invoicing network.

Singapore is one of the many countries looking to roll out e-invoicing mandates in the coming years.

Speaking to GovInsider, IMDA’s Deputy Director of InvoiceNow, Bill Xiao, shared that beyond tax compliance, interoperable and secure e-invoicing can promote broader societal and economic benefits.

InvoiceNow supports the digital economy by making transactions simpler, more efficient and reliable among businesses, he said.

For example, businesses are not bound by a single solution to transact and invoice with different parties. The invoice data goes directly into the business’ accounting solutions - thereby reducing manual data entry efforts.

Today, more than 60,000 businesses are on the InvoiceNow network, supported by over 200 service providers.

“We see InvoiceNow as a building block to drive business digitalisation in Singapore, contributing to great efficiency gains at national level,” he says.

IMDA is the statutory board that takes charge of the standards, accreditation of service providers, as well as industry partnerships and initiatives to boost e-invoicing adoption among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

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Driving e-invoicing adoptions through ‘queen bees’

Xiao said Norway’s e-invoicing journey has informed how Singapore approaches its own.

The former is known for its high e-invoicing adoption rate - involving more than 280,000 businesses and transacting more than 100 million e-invoices a year.

Xiao accounted Norway’s success to mandate the use of Peppol standard for public procurement, resulting in “an exponential increase in transactions,” he says.

Peppol stands for the Pan-European Public Procurement On-Line, which is a set of open standards and specifications which enables the exchange of electronic documents globally.

“With [Norway’s experience], IMDA learned that one key strategy for driving adoptions is through queen bees, including government procurement,” he added.

In 2020, IMDA partnered with the Accountant-General Department (AGD) to allow vendors to send e-invoices to government agencies using InvoiceNow, and actively promoted the use of InvoiceNow for public procurement.

Electronic data interchange firm, EDICOM, earlier reported that IMDA had centrally registered unique Peppol identifiers for all government agencies.

The unique identifiers simplify the process for suppliers to send e-invoices directly to these agencies.

Adopting the same “queen bees” approach, IMDA also worked with large enterprises to adopt InvoiceNow and leverage their influence to drive transactions with their business partners.

These enterprises include local supermarket chain Sheng Siong, Japanese tech multinational Konica Minolta, and the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT).

Xiao added that IMDA was currently working with industry associations, such as the Singapore Business Federation (SBF), Singapore Manufacturing Federation (SMF), Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce & Industry (SCCCI), to promote the use of InvoiceNow by their member companies.

Leveraging on Peppol and cross-border benefits for SMEs

Back in 2018 when its e-invoicing efforts started, IMDA became the first Peppol Authority outside of Europe.

Today, the Peppol network has grown to cover 41 countries as of end 2024, said Xiao.

A Peppol authority is a government-appointed body within a country that oversees the use of the Peppol network.

IMDA is now collaborating with other Peppol authorities in Asia Pacific, including Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Malaysia, to promote e-invoicing adoption for domestic and cross-border transactions, explained Xiao.

This collaboration is centered around more cross-border friendly Peppol standards, known as the Peppol International (PINT).

“They are designed to simplify global billing and invoicing processes and with it, businesses can expect to invoice each other cross-border more seamlessly,” he shared.

Ecosystem collaboration

Xiao pointed to an ecosystem approach – working with other government agencies, industry associations, and SMEs themselves – to push through with the national e-invoicing initiative.

“IMDA has developed a vibrant e-invoicing ecosystem on both the supply and demand sides,” he said.

As a statutory board, IMDA runs the accreditation for both access point providers and InvoiceNow-ready solution providers.

Access point providers connect businesses to the network, by providing technical infrastructure and services to transmit e-invoices in the Peppol format.

Solution providers, on the other hand, are those that offer accounting solutions that businesses use to create, send and receive invoices.

At present, there are about 30 access point providers offering their services in Singapore, and 100 solution providers that support InvoiceNow features on their platforms.

The readily available InvoiceNow feature makes it easy for businesses to start using InvoiceNow. To top it off, IMDA has also curated a list of different solutions to suit the needs of various business profiles.

To address the capacity and funding issues faced by SMEs, IMDA has put forward funding support to offset the cost of adoption and partnered with solution providers to avail basic e-invoicing capabilities for SMEs to try.

Last year, the InvoiceNow Accelerate Programme was launched to provide free InvoiceNow solutions to newly incorporated businesses for one year.

Editor's note: The e-invoicing mandate mentioned at the start of the story has been corrected. Coming this November, the InvoiceNow mandate will be progressively rolled out, starting with newly incorporated businesses that are voluntarily registered for GST. From next April, the mandate will include all businesses that are voluntarily registered for GST.