e-Billing Suite

News about the implementation of Electronic Invoicing in the Porto city council and Social Domus, EM;

The Porto City Council integrated the PI e-Billing Connector with its ERP

The Porto City Council (CMP) has had the ability to send and receive electronic invoices and other commercial documents through fully automated processes. Thanks to this project, the Town Council has optimized the efficiency of services in reducing errors, increasing productivity and minimizing the physical file. The municipality was able to decrease the time of settlement and payment of invoices, the cost of shipping and handling of documents, providing significant reductions in paper consumption.

The electronic invoice is included in the policy of modernization of the services that county, and is part of the program Simplex Autárquico. This project may have on the municipality an authority role in the modernization and simplification of its relationship with suppliers and users, which will translate into higher productivity gains and cost savings.

This project involved the implementation of the PI e-Billing Connector, a solution developed by PI - Portugal Informático, which was integrated with the financial modules of the Associação de Informática da Região Centro (AIRC) ERP, were as developed integration mechanisms (inbound and outbound) between these technological tools, promoting the simplification of procedures and dematerialization. This implementation enables a completely transparent Interface to the user. Following completion of the project, all the financial and accounting departments of the municipality are prepared to send and receive electronic invoices from the residents and from the suppliers.

Vladimiro Feliz, responsibility councilor for the Innovation of the Porto City Council, said that the project is inserted in the policy of continuous upgrading of services in the municipality. «We seek to create effective solutions and environmentally friendly, reducing considerably the internal bureaucracy," said the councilman, referring that this particular project «clearly reduces costs and time in issuing documents, in addition to substantially reduce the use of paper, contributing to a greater efficiency of internal processes».

Vitor Martins, Director of Information Systems of CMP, says that «the council has encouraged a number of projects, which seek to modernize the internal services to better serve our citizens, these initiatives seek to automate processes, facilitate integration of systems and increase the security of information always with the aim to make the city more responsive and efficient.» According to the Director of Information Systems for city council, this was another project which was used to achieve efficiency gains, the project was «relatively easy to implement and with reduced complexity».

The project is now being examined for future expansion to other municipal utilities, such as Águas do Porto, and the interconnection with external entities to the CMP, as is the case of EDP and Portugal Telecom.