Creating a platform to meet European mandates
Responding to customer requirements
Telenet Business offers internet, data, telephony and TV solutions in Belgium and Luxembourg. The company is also specialized in IT solutions, such as hosting, cloud computing, and cybersecurity.
AdValvas (now a part of Axway) and Telenet Business have a long history together offering e-invoicing to corporate clients. In 2017, Telenet Business was mandated by government clients to support European standard UBL e-invoicing. By now, Business-To-Government (B2G) e-invoicing is mandatory for public procurements in the EU. In response, Telenet Business worked with AdValvas to roll out a new billing platform that gives all Telenet Business customers the option of e-invoicing using UBL.
A long-time partnership
Telenet business decided a long time ago to manage its consumer billing in-house. The billing infrastructure was designed for printed invoices as the default delivery method.
Because more and more business clients requested e-invoices with structured data, Telenet Business joined forces with AdValvas Europe (now a part of Axway) in 2007 to offer ETIS (an Edifact standard for telecom) to Platinum (corporate) customers, and XML invoices for Gold and Silver customers. AdValvas took care of the technical aspects.
As of 2017, Telenet Business was mandated by its government clients to only send e-invoices via Peppol (complying with the European norm). Telenet Business logically decided to extend its successful cooperation with AdValvas Europe (now a part of Axway) to set up the Peppol flow. The Peppol setup was implemented as an add-on service, in parallel to the automated billing flow. It allowed Telenet Business to adhere to the demand of the government clients, although the additional administrative overhead made the solution rather sub-optimal.
The e-invoicing 2.0 project
To accommodate new brands and anticipate the extended scope of services, Telenet Business opted for a new, future-oriented billing platform. Triggered by the widely accepted European e-invoicing standard (EN-16931), Telenet Business decided to integrate e-invoicing support in the design from the start, particularly paying attention to automation and scalability.
It takes some tweaking to translate a telco invoice into UBL syntax. Telco-specific information, specific VAT regimes, the rounding from four to two decimals, or the large number of invoice lines all ask for some adjustments. Axway's eInvoicing team is a specialist in handling these kinds of recurring services. As a result, the new e-invoicing system works for all Telenet brands, all services, and every customer segment. The platform is flexible enough to adapt to different business scenarios, in order to conform to the specific e-invoice format requested by the customer.
E-invoicing: The new standard
The limitations of the current UBL have been tackled, and that is exactly why Axway was the right partner for the job. With its vast experience offering enterprise solutions for processing recurring services, Axway truly adds value where it is most needed. As of now, besides the already existing e-invoicing flows, Telenet Business sends EN-16931 UBL invoices through the Peppol network as well as embedded within a hybrid PDF attached to e-mail (for customers that have no Peppol presence).
Consequently, Telenet Business can keep its client promise of accurate and transparent invoicing. And the internal administrative departments also benefit from the automation integrated into the new billing solution. E-invoicing has become the new standard.
About Axway eInvoicing
Part of the Axway B2B Integration Platform, Axway eInvoicing lets you handle invoicing in a way that's global, standards-driven, and always up to date, whatever the country. It offers efficiency and cost advantages to companies everywhere by making invoicing 100 percent digital.
