The 2018 budget law has established for public administration bodies, starting from February 2020, the exclusive use of the electronic management of purchase orders for goods and services(public procurement), trough the Nodo Smistamento Ordini (Order Sorting Node) ,NSO.
At the national level, the goal is achieving a complete digitization of public procurement, however, even at European level, work is being done in this direction, to allow companies to easily participate in the purchasing processes in the European public sector, thus promoting greater competitiveness among economic operators.
By INTERZEN CONSULTING
Interzen, with a view to the continuous development of the ZenShare Suite, has added new and fundamental assets in the field of order management:
– the accreditation on Nodo Smistamento Ordini – NSO – (Order Sorting Node) for the management of electronic orders of the Italian PA (Interzen was already an intermediary at the SDI for sending electronic invoices);
– certification as Service Provider Access Point PEPPOL for the management of electronic orders at European level
– a new ZenPurchase solution, focused on the Order Management process and integrated in ZenCRM, (Suite solution for Customer Relationship Management).
To the management of the whole process Lead-To-Cash which goes from the generation of the lead to the collection of the invoice, ZenPurchase has been added and,furthermore, it has been provided the possibility to manage the entire phase relating to purchase and sales orders in an electronic format in an integrated manner, according to what provided for by the new legislation on the subject of public procurement
What is the NSO and what is it for?
The NSO (Order Sorting Node), is the digital document transmission system managed by the State Accounting Department of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, and has become indispensable for all companies operating as suppliers in the public health sector.
Basically, the tasks of the NSO for electronic orders are similar to those that the SDI – Sistema di Interscambio – (Interexchange System) performs for electronic invoices: a sort of ‘virtual postman’ for sorting and delivering the order document to the correct recipient, after the appropriate checks.
In the case of electronic purchase order management an important difference compared to what is foreseen for electronic invoicing is represented by the use of Peppol.
What is Peppol?
Peppol stand for Pan-European Public Procurement On-Line. It is a European project funded by the European Commission, which aims at standardizing order management processes, or rather the way in which information regarding purchase orders is structured and exchanged.
Since November 2021, the State Accounting Office has formalized the mandatory nature of Peppol technical specifications, specifications that have been implemented by AgID (the Agency for Digital Italy), as PEPPOL Authority in our country.
In fact, to take advantage of Peppol, the supplier companies of the Public Administration must use Access Points accredited by AgID, or obtain the qualification of Service Provider and therefore, in essence, the status of intermediary to transmit and receive order documents via NSO (Nodo Smistamento Ordini).
After the SDI – Sistema di Interscambio – ( Interexchange System) for electronic invoices, Interzen was also accredited with the NSO – Nodo Smistamento Ordini – (Order Sorting Node) of the PA and obtained the qualification of Access Point provider (AP) and Service Metadata Publisher (SMP), becoming a full-fledged Peppol Access Point Service Provider, at European level, for receiving and sending orders in electronic format.
More specifically, Interzen Consulting appears in the official PEPPOL lists as:
– PEPPOL Access Point Provider recognized by the Italian PEPPOL Authority
– Certified PEPPOL Access Point
The scenario that is emerging is a digital revolution of business management models of companies, which in the short term will lead to a radical change in the relationships and operational processes between private companies and public institutions, and in the medium term also in all the other commercial relations (B2B and B2C).
Thanks to the assets obtained, a milestone has been set in the digital innovation process promoted by Interzen Consulting in favor of all those companies which, by choosing the solutions of the ZenShare Suite, will gain the competitive advantage necessary to quickly and successfully face the challenges imposed by the new rules of the European market.
