As of February 2023 Dirk Willekens, an international authority in the field of Peppol, has joined the Billit team. In the position of E-invoice Program Manager he will take our Peppol projects to the next level. Dirk explains why he chose Billit and which evolutions he expects in the field of Peppol.
I worked at BOSA (Belgian Peppol Authority) for 2 years, where I focused on Mercurius, the central platform to send and receive invoices to and from public entities. After that, I joined GS1 Belgium & Luxembourg as EDI Manager and Senior Product Specialist on transactional data exchange.
I am also part of European work forces such as CEN TC 434 on e-invoicing and CEN TC 440 on e-procurement. On top of that, I also participate in several OpenPeppol working groups such as Peppol International Invoice (PINT) and Continuous Transaction Control (CTC).
I first had contact with Billit when working for the government over 5 years ago. As part of my job, I tested several invoicing software tools that were available on the Belgian market. One of them was Billit, and I was pleasantly surprised with what it could do, even at that time. I contacted Billit to give feedback which was very much welcomed by founders Tom and Michael. It was their first contact with Peppol as Peppol only started in 2012. So I basically introduced them to it. Michael and Tom quickly understood the importance of Peppol and we kept contact ever since.
I immediately noticed the flexibility and ambition of Billit. As a start-up they are able to adapt to the quickly-changing market.
Another great asset is that Billit started developing software for small companies first, instead of enterprises or public institutions. That too makes them more flexible and allows them to adapt their software to big companies and public entities, rather than having to do it the other way around.
In terms of vision on the future, we’re a complete match. Not to mention the fun atmosphere and the fact that this young team desperately needed a grey-beard!
There is still a long way to go when it comes to Peppol as many countries are implementing mandatory e-invoicing. I will mostly work on international projects to align existing standards. My focus will certainly be on European countries such as France, Luxemburg, Italy, Germany and Spain for a start. But also globally, we will address markets such as Mexico, Japan, New Zealand and Australia where e-invoicing is becoming more urgent very soon.
Peppol is now mainly used to send and receive e-invoices securely, but it can do so much more. For example, you can use it in the 3-way matching principle. This means that you link a delivery report and an invoice to an order which ensures swift and correct payment. This concept allows companies to prevent fraud. Instead of limiting to e-invoices, we can even go back in the process to e-notification, e-catalogue and e-tendering, the so-called ‘e-procurement cycle’.
Some countries, such as the Nordics and Italy, have already successfully implemented this process and I have no doubt that when companies see the benefits of using Peppol for e-ordering and e-invoicing, other types of documents will follow soon.
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