First test of U.S. e-invoicing network hailed as success

The Digital Business Networks Alliance, a nonprofit backed by the Federal Reserve that serves as the legal entity overseeing the US open Exchange Framework, announced the first successful electronic invoice transmission over the U.S. network.

While the European Union has been working on developing e-invoice infrastructure for at least a decade, the U.S. has typically lagged behind. Given this, Chris Welsh, chair of the DBNAlliance, said this development is an "exciting milestone."

"The DBNAlliance makes it easier to conduct business across the U.S., as well as internationally, and we look forward to enabling businesses from any industry to electronically exchange their invoices and other supply chain documents moving forward," said Welsh. "Our goal is to have over a thousand companies using the exchange framework before the end of the year."

The first invoice exchange occurred between two DBNAlliance service providers — Avalara and Storecove. Storecove received the invoice, issued by Avalara. The transaction was executed from Avalara's E-Invoicing and Live Reporting solution leveraging the DBNAlliance Exchange Framework for message transfer, process descriptions and document content exchange. The invoice was successfully transferred and imported by Storecove's e-invoicing and reporting solution, where it was processed and is now ready to be paid.

"It's with great pride that Avalara was able to be the first service provider to successfully issue an e-invoice on the DBNAlliance Exchange Framework," said Alex Baulf, vice president of e-invoicing at Avalara and member of the DBNAlliance board of directors. "Our global e-invoicing and live reporting solution is ready to support businesses that want to leverage the DBNAlliance B2B Digital Highway to streamline their invoicing processes."

The test is part of the Federal Reserve's larger efforts to modernize payment systems in the U.S., which has been ongoing since at least 2012. These efforts have also included the creation of the FedNow network for instant payments, as well as a possible digital dollar sometime in the future. The idea of a U.S. e-invoicing network was explored in 2019, and a more detailed proof of concept report came out in 2021. A market-ready framework was officially released in 2023; the Digital Business Networks Alliance was then formed in November to oversee the framework and work to get more entities in the network.

"Hard work brings great results", said Dolf Kars, CEO at e-invoicing provider Storecove and the DBNAlliance board member who chairs the membership and market adoption committee. "After years of preparation, the DBNAlliance exchange network now serves as an efficient and reliable network for many businesses to seamlessly exchange e-documents within the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The successful transmission of this invoice from the U.S. to the Netherlands highlights the network's ability to facilitate intercontinental exchanges. Looking forward, billions more invoices are anticipated in the years ahead."

Today, DBNAlliance has more than 35 members and is actively recruiting new members. Companies interested in connecting to the exchange framework can do so through a DBNAlliance access point service provider. The initial focus of the DBNAlliance is on registering U.S. businesses in the energy, supply chain, life sciences and financial industries, but businesses from other industries are also encouraged to join.

For DBNAlliance service providers, the framework facilitates the connection of buyers and suppliers and ensures it meets customers' business rules. The framework enables access point service providers to enroll more suppliers onto their network, providing supply chain engagement for their buyer clients and improving straight-through processing. Service providers can become a full member of the DBNAlliance, which comes with an official DBNAlliance certificate. For more information, click here.