Summary

A DLT-based invoice is an invoice that can be issued, transferred and received in a structured electronic format over digital ledgers which allow automatic, electronic transactions based on smart contracts.

It presents as a novel invoice service category, emerging as a promising solution to tackle challenges by leveraging the capability of distributed ledger technology and the trust requirement of the stakeholders in the ecosystem.

The usage of DLT-based invoices is driven mainly by seeking to optimize an end-to-end trustworthy business process across the jurisdictions in the major processes, e.g., issuance, routing, processing, reimbursement, auditing and so on.

Recommendation ITU-T F.751.4 is not proposing a "regulatory" framework. However, for any tax implications, regulatory considerations must be addressed at a national level and are not the subject of the Recommendation.

The electronic exchange of the invoice content between trading partners' accounts receivable and accounts payable business processes is to be recorded over the invoice digital ledger in a trustworthy way with local tax compliance.

From a technology perspective, how the invoice will be transferred in a secure and interoperable way and how policies in different jurisdictions are enforced needs to be determined. Meanwhile, data privacy, security, trust and confidentiality have to be guaranteed, which is relevant to the following aspects:

–           secure messaging infrastructure to ensure that senders and receivers can trust the system and confidently exchange invoices;

–           programmable government tax policies that can be securely enforced;

–           invoice data validation schemes to ensure the integrity of the invoice content;

–           immutability of the digital distributed ledgers to allow stakeholders to store and validate the invoice based on their corresponding privileges.