The goal of the project called Internet of Business (IoB) initiated four years ago is to develop a secure and convenient environment for automated real-time business transactions, the Estonian Association of Information Technology and Telecommunications said.

Kaido Heinsalu, sales and business development manager at the Estonian branch of the Finnish IT services provider Tieto, partner to IoB, said the goal outlined in the 2014-2020 information society development plan to switch to online invoicing in the public sector was achieved last year.

"From e-invoicing we are now moving on to standardizing the entire information on an economic transaction. We are using the widely employed XBRL GL standard to create the prerequisites needed for automated reporting with the state as well as for business-to-business exchange of machine-readable transaction information," Heinsalu said.

"The European e-invoicing standard has been adopted in Estonia, we have also joined the international data interchange network PEPPOL, and due to Estonian e-invoice operators being interfaced to the X-Road data exchange layer, Estonia's public sector is also accessible for Europe," Heinsalu noted.

To be developed as part of the IoB project is a solution called MyCompanyData, which provides automated business transaction and reporting services through e-invoicing operators and business software. The XBRL GL standard is also being introduced by Statistics Estonia and the Tax and Customs Board.

As part of the IoB project, the European e-invoicing standard will be made compatible with XBRL GL in order to ensure capability for cross-border as well as domestic data exchange with businesses that do not immediately switch to XBRL GL or MyCompanyData.

The project is to deliver in early 2021 public guidance materials aimed at facilitating the introduction of MyCompanyData and XBRL GL at Estonian as well as foreign businesses.

Partners to the project include the non-profit association ITL Digital Lab, Association of Estonian Accountants, Tieto Estonia AS, Fitek AS, Columbus Eesti AS, BCS Itera AS, Account Studio OU, SimplBooks OU, OU Skriining.

In 2020, project activities will be financed in the amount of 953,584 euros with support by the European Commission's CEF Telecom eInvoicing 2019 program. The IoB project was previously supported from the Interreg Baltic Sea Region Seed Money program in 2016 and from the CEF Telecom eInvoicing 2016 program in 2017.

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