UBL Small Business Committee Proposal

Dear UBL Committee Members,

I am formally proposing that the UBL Small Business Subcommittee be reactivated, with the scope given in the charter below. I propose to the chairman of the UBL committee put this to the vote of committee members. I acknowledge the timing of this proposal may prevent the vote appearing on the agenda this week.

Since the committee was disbanded, we've seen a range of governments adopt UBL as the basis for their e-Invoicing standards. These implementations tend to rely on a subset of UBL, focussing on the most common needs of businesses, big or small. PEPPOL has developed their BIS 2.0 specification, and Australia has created their own similar standard. Other countries have custom standards, some based on UBL, and some not.

I propose that this subcommittee be formed to review e-invoicing networks worldwide and to:

Issue a committee note that identifies a subset of UBL that meets most or all of the needs of global e-invoicing networks, based on what is currently in use.
Create an implementation guide for other countries implementing e-invoicing networks, with the aim of promoting cross-border interoperability.

The focus on small business ensures we have a minimum workable e-invoicing standard. Different governments may include more of the UBL standard to meet the needs of their regulators and/or their larger businesses.

Pending the UBL Chair's acceptance of the motion at this week's meeting or next, please review the charter and consider your position.

Kind regards,

Matt Vickers

UBL Small Business Subcommittee Charter

Define a subset of UBL that meets the requirements of the global small business community, while conforming with the complete UBL standard.

Matt Vickers, matt.vickers@xero.com, Chair
Ken Holman, gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com, Secretary

Statement of purpose

UBL has expanded to offer exhaustive coverage of the needs of businesses of all sizes and in all sectors, while still being extensible for the needs of particular geographies and industries.

However, in doing so, the onus on some technology partners in implementing the entire standard may be significant and prohibitive. This group aims to identify a minimal implementation set which allows small businesses with a smaller set of requirements to interchange electronic documents via any desired transport mechanism, including domestic and international e-invoicing networks.

This group also aims to keep pace with PEPPOL BIS standards and the needs of governments that have adopted UBL as the basis of their e-Invoicing initiatives. In this sense, the aim of this committee is not to compete with or supercede those implementations, but to create a common standard which works in harmony with existing BIS standards and other national UBL implementations which can better facilitate interoperability between markets.

The Small Business Subcommittee is tasked with identifying requirements for the MSME community and to release a committee note describing a package of UBL that meets those requirements.

Scope of Work

To liaise with governments, industry and organizations to define small business for the purposes of this committee
To develop and document a committee note describing UBL package containing a subset of UBL functionality focussed on the needs of that smaller group.
To liaise regarding small business needs with other subcommittees in UBL as required.
To foster implementations of small business UBL to test the viability of UBL implementations in real-world scenarios. For example, accounting software vendors aiming to meet the needs of small businesses.
To develop informative materials as an aid to developers of UBL based applications and interfaces.

List of Deliverables

Small Business UBL Use Case
Small Business UBL process model(s)
Small Business UBL document model(s)
Small Business UBL package documentation
Small Business UBL Implementation Guide

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