3 Organizacija, V olume 57 Issue 1, February 2024 Research Papers 1 Received: 16th August 2023; Accepted: 5th January 2024 E-invoicing: A Catalyst for Digitalization and Sustainability Rok BOJANC 1 , Andreja PUCIHAR 2 , Gregor LENART 2 1 ZZI, Ljubljana - Črnuče, Slovenia, rok.bojanc@zzi.si 2 Univerza v Mariboru, Fakulteta za organizacijske vede, Kranj, Slovenia, andreja.pucihar@um.si, gregor.lenart@um.si Background and Purpose: Digitalization brings a wide range of opportunities for both digital and sustainable transformation. One of the first steps on this journey is the digitization of business documents and digitalization of business processes. The European Commission has recognised the advantages of digitalization, particularly in the context of e-invoicing, which can contribute significantly to economic prosperity and align with public policy goals such as deficit reduction and sustainable development. Despite the successful adoption of e-invoicing in the public sector, the uptake of e-invoicing in business-to-business (B2B) transactions is surprisingly low. This research focus - es on Slovenia, a small European country that imple-mented e-invoicing as mandatory between enterprises and the public sector in 2015. Methods: To investigate e-invoicing adoption in the wider population, we designed an online survey, which was conducted among 284 organizations in Slovenia. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 28 software. One sample t-test was used to evaluate the importance of identified advantages, barriers and incentives for e-invoicing usage. Further, we ran an inde-pendent sample t-test to identify statistically important differences in the importance of ad-vantages, barriers, and incentives between organizations with lower and higher levels of e-invoicing usage. Results: The results showed that organizations recognize the benefits of e-invoicing well and perceive them as important. The most important barriers to e-invoicing adoption are related to the business environment, unaware- ness and lack of knowledge about how to implement e-invoicing. Desired incentives for wider e-invoicing adoption are related to easier and lower costs of technical implementation, provided training and education, including best practices, as well as the availability of government grants and other support measures on the state level, including legislation, public directory of business entities using electronic document exchange and service providers. Conclusion: The paper provides important information for decision-makers and public ad-min-istrations to take appropriate measures and incentives to further support wider adoption of e-invoicing and exchange of other e-doc- uments to exploit opportunities of digitalization better. Keywords: e-invoicing, Adoption, Digitalization, Sustainability, EU, Slovenia DOI: 10.2478/orga-2024-0001 1 Introduction Today’s market conditions, characterised by phenom- ena such as increasing competition, glob-alisation, market uncertainty, fast technological development and the rapid growth of start-ups with increasingly digitalized value and business models, are driving organizations towards digital transformation (Nadkarni & Prügl, 2020; Pucihar et al., 2022; Zammuto et al., 2007). Digital transformation refers to the strategic use of digital technologies and the organi- zational capabilities that enable their effective use (Kljajić Borštnar & Pucihar, 2021; Pucihar et al., 2021; Tijan et al., 2021; Vial, 2019). One of the first steps on the digital transformation journey of every organization is to digitise business doc- uments and digitalized business processes (Verhoef et al., 4 Organizacija, V olume 57 Issue 1, February 2024 Research Papers 2021). Business docu-ments are related to the processes of buying, selling, shipping and receiving goods, provid- ing services, receiving and issuing invoices and payments, and all related response messages be-tween organizations. The first endeavours of digitisation of business documents started in the 1980s (then called electronic data inter- change - EDI) and later spread to large retail chains, which were among the first to recognise the benefits of exchang- ing business documents in a standardised electronic for- mat, which enabled automated processing of large volume of busi-ness documents in enterprise business information systems (Marolt et al., 2021a). The ad-vantages of digiti- sation and digitalization are reflected in faster process exe- cution, fewer er-rors, document accessibility and lower op- erating costs, which results in reduced costs and in-creased efficiency (Horák et al., 2020; Marolt et al., 2021b). The benefits of digitization and digitalization have also been recognised by the European Commission. For exam- ple, according to the European Commission’s Directorate General for Informatics (DG DIGIT), the use of e-invoic- ing (exchange of invoices in standardized elec-tronic for- mat) in the public sector can make a significant contribu- tion to economic prosperity (Connecting Europe Facility Stakeholder Management Office, 2019). The use of e-in- voicing supports public policy priorities such as reducing the public sector deficit, promoting financial transparency, and promoting sustainable development. It also makes an important contribution to cost reduction and efficiency in the public sector. In addition, it also benefits private sector service providers and creates opportunities for the public sector to act as a catalyst for wider adoption of digital pro- cesses common to the private sector (European Commis- sion, n.d.). Quantitative estimates by the “European e-invoicing initiative” indicate potential savings of around EUR 240 billion over a six-year period in the area of e-invoicing, taking into account that 30 billion invoices are issued and exchanged per year in the European Union (European Commission, 2010). It is important to mention that digi- talization and digital transformation bring enormous po- tential also for sustainability (Jović et al., 2022). The en- vironmental benefits of e-invoicing are very significant, as the EU can reduce CO2 emissions by 1 million tonnes per year by reducing paper consumption and energy costs for transportation (Veselá & Radiměřský, 2014). This is why the European Commission published a Communication in 2010 entitled “Reaping the benefits of electronic invoicing for Europe”. This was followed by Directive 2014/55/EU on electronic invoicing in public procurement (Directive 2014/55/EU of the European Parliament and of the Coun- cil of 16 April 2014 on Electronic Invoicing in Pub-lic Pro- curement, 2014). EU Member States have signed up for the mandatory exchange of e-invoices between enterprises and the public sector. It is worth noting that Denmark was the first country to introduce mandatory e-invoicing back in 2005, followed by Sweden, Finland, Norway, Austria, Italy, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland, which also belong to the early adopters (Koch, 2017). Following the introduction of mandatory use of e-in- voicing among enterprises and the public sector, there were expectations from various stakeholders that the widespread use of e-invoicing would easily be extended to business-to-business transactions. Enterprises issu- ing e-invoices to the public sector have the appropriate software solutions to prepare and issue e-invoices, and their employees have acquired the appropriate skills and competencies to carry out these procedures. As e-invoic- ing to other enterprises is done in the same way and with the same software solutions as to the public sector, it is a big surprise that the use of e-invoicing among enterpris- es has not grown significantly per se but has only slightly increased in recent years (Bojanc et al., 2020; European Commission, 2022; Koch, 2019). Most of the adoption of business-to-business e-invoicing has come from some of the larger enterprises that have di-rectly invited their suppliers or buyers to use e-invoicing (European Com- mission, 2021b; Eu-ropean Multi-Stakeholder Forum on E-Invoicing (EMSFEI), 2018; Koch, 2019), while in busi- ness-to-business transactions the use of e-invoicing is still scarce. In this research, we focus on Slovenia, which has joined the mandatory use of e-invoices among enterpris- es and the public sector as of 1 January 2015, using the national eSLOG standard (Zakon o Opravljanju Plačilnih Storitev Za Proračunske Uporabnike (ZOPSPU-1), 2016). The main purpose of this study was to gain insights into the current situation in the field of business-to-business e-invoicing and identify reasons why e-invoicing has not become more widespread among enterprises (in the con- text of business-to-business use). In particular, we were interested in understanding the perceived advantages and barriers of e-invoicing and what incentives should be taken to widespread and increase e-invoicing use to fully exploit its potential of increased efficiency, reduced costs and CO2 emissions. For that purpose, we pre-pared the survey in cooperation with key Slovenian stakeholders. The survey was conducted among 284 organizations. The paper provides a comprehensive literature review of the field and detailed information about e-invoicing in the EU and Slovenia, including legislative and regulatory frameworks. The survey results include information about e-invoicing use and perceived advantages, barri-ers and incentives for wider adoption. The results of the survey provide valuable information for decision-makers and pol- icymakers, especially in light of the preparations for the legally mandatory use of e-invoicing between enterprises. Understanding information from the field before the intro- duction of legislation may resolve many potential prob- lems that might other-wise arise later. 5 Organizacija, V olume 57 Issue 1, February 2024 Research Papers 2 Literature review 2.1 Definition of e-invoices An e-invoice is an invoice that has been issued, trans- mitted and received in a structured elec-tronic format. As such, it allows the automation of its generation, sending, transmission, re-ception and processing of the invoice us- ing appropriate (business) information systems and tech- nologies (European Parliament, 2014). Some enterprises use visualised electronic invoice formats such as PDF, JPG, and HTML instead of structured e-invoices (Direc- tive 2014/55/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 April 2014 on Electronic Invoicing in Pub- lic Procurement, 2014; Koch, 2016, 2019). These types of document formats are not con-sidered as e-invoices. The exchange of visual electronic document formats only rep- resents savings for enterprises in terms of printing, post- age, intra-organisational routing and archiving. However, it does not allow the automation of processes and proce- dures. The e-invoicing has been around for decades (Koch, 2019). As early as the 1980s, large or-ganisations were using EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) as a technol- ogy to transfer invoice data. At the time, these systems were point-to-point systems that required significant in- vest-ment in establishing and maintaining connections between trading partners (Penttinen & Hyytiäinen, 2008). Electronic data interchange (EDI) was initially implement- ed between en-terprises only. Later, the Internet was used as a backbone to transfer e-invoices between indi-viduals, enterprises and government, significantly reducing the cost of implementing e-invoices in organisations (Lian, 2015). Today, digital transformation and emerging technol- ogies enable new approaches to business performance (Martínez-Román et al., 2020; Nasiri et al., 2020; Tiwari et al., 2023). The trans-mission of e-invoices based on open standards (e.g. XML) over the Internet has economic and practical advantages over the costly, complex and bilater- al EDI exchange systems used previ-ously (Penttinen & Hyytiäinen, 2008; Tanner & Richter, 2018). E-invoicing has become a global phenomenon and has recently been increasingly adopted by governments and organiza-tions as well as medium and large enterprises (Olaleye et al., 2023). 2.2 Benefits of e-invoicing Recent literature clearly outlines many potential ben- efits of e-invoicing compared to paper invoicing, both for the economy and society due to increased efficiency and simplicity and for the environment due to reduced paper consumption and CO2 emissions (Bellon et al., 2022; Hag- sten & Falk, 2020; Keifer, 2011; Koch, 2019; Moretto & Caniato, 2021; Ollo-López & Aramendía-Muneta, 2012; Penttinen & Tenhunen, 2010; Poel et al., 2016; Qi & Che Azmi, 2021; Tiwari et al., 2023; Yip & Bocken, 2018). E-invoices can be handled and processed more effi- ciently than paper invoices (Bellon et al., 2022). It offers faster delivery times, shorter payment delays and increased reliability as it reduces administrative errors (Edelmann & Sintonen, 2006; Lumiaho & Rämänen, 2011; Poel et al., 2016). In addition, there is the possibility to automate the processes of issuing, ex-changing, receiving, automatical- ly validating and archiving invoices (Poel et al., 2016). It ena-bles for greater efficiency of human resources, as it relieves staff of administrative tasks, al-lowing them to spend their time on other, more productive tasks. E-invoic- ing can significantly reduce costs, e.g. reducing printing, postage and operational costs (Berez & Sheth, 2007; Edel- mann & Sintonen, 2006; El Hani, 2001; Fairchild, 2004; Haq, 2007; Penttinen & Tuun-ainen, 2010). Various studies estimate savings of up to 64% when using e-invoicing (European Commission, 2022; Koch, 2016, 2019). These estimates only consider the financial benefits of e-invoicing. When non-financial benefits are considered, the additional savings are multiplied by the num-ber of e-invoices received and issued. The Billentis report publishes indications of the saving potential through the use of e-invoicing in the public sector of some Euro- pean countries (Koch, 2016). While no estimates are given for Slovenia, potential savings of around EUR 600-700 million per year are shown for smaller countries such as Austria and Switzerland, and an esti-mated EUR 6,5 bil- lion per year is given for Germany. The calculations of the estimates are made under two constraints. In the first sce- nario, only 60% of invoices are exchanged as e-invoices (XML format) and the remaining 40% in visualised elec- tronic formats (PDF for-mat). If each country switched en- tirely to e-invoicing, the potential savings would be even higher. Another limitation of the estimation is that it only includes data for the public sector. One of the advantages to be highlighted is also the in- creased efficiency and traceability of the processes, as the information is obtained in real-time, and it is, therefore, easier to check where the e-invoice is in the billing process (Veselá & Radiměřský, 2014). Electronic invoices enable faster processing and approval cycles. Some suppliers are often willing to offer an additional discount for earlier pay- ment (Keifer, 2011). It can provide a competitive advan- tage for organ-isations and make them less geographically dependent (Fairchild, 2004; Keifer, 2011; Koch, 2019; Ko- rkman et al., 2010; Sandberg et al., 2009). Implementing e-invoices also benefits other partners in the supply chain by increasing the dig-italised buyer-sup- plier relationships, thereby bringing new business-to-busi- ness (B2B) oppor-tunities (Rask et al., 2009). It also in- creases commitment and offers convenience to the supply chain partners and better customer service (Fairchild, 2004; 6 Organizacija, V olume 57 Issue 1, February 2024 Research Papers Penttinen & Tuunainen, 2010; Poel et al., 2016; Sandberg et al., 2009). Tanner and Richter (Tanner & Richter, 2018) empha-sise the importance of understanding and involving business partners when developing new systems solutions. E-invoicing could also prove extremely useful in en- abling supply chain finance (SCF), as it enables faster, cheaper processes and innovative solutions (Caniato et al., 2016; Marak & Pillai, 2018, 2021; Wuttke et al., 2013). As traditional credit risk assessment models have become less reliable, modern digital technologies, including e-in- voicing, are even more important than before for real-time monitoring of supply chains (Moretto & Caniato, 2021). For the government, e-invoicing can greatly contribute to financial compliance and increase tax collection (Kryso- vatyy et al., 2021; Olaleye et al., 2023; Skare et al., 2023). There is a pos-itive influence of perceived benefits and trust in e-government on e-invoice adoption. E-invoice adoption also has a positive influence on the efficiency of tax compliance (Qi & Che Azmi, 2021). The positive effects of e-invoicing were also evident during the Covid-19 pandemic. The pro-cess of issuing, transmitting and processing e-invoices is very independent from a geographical point of view, so it perfectly aligns with social distancing and isolation regulations of COV- ID-19 and allows organizations to avoid major problems with both the issuance, pro-cessing and payment of invoic- es, despite the hectic situation. However, the COVID-19 pan-demic has disrupted the introduction and implemen- tation schedule and deadlines of electronic invoicing in various countries worldwide. Covid-19 has slowed down the speed of implemen-tation, regulations, and legislation (Moretto & Caniato, 2021; Olaleye et al., 2023). E-invoices are also convenient for consumers, provid- ing an easier way to pay and reducing the likelihood of forgetting to pay the invoice (Poel et al., 2016). Finally, e-invoices bring several environmental benefits such as reduced paper consumption, increased energy effi- ciency, generated carbon savings and reduced greenhouse gas emissions (Mirabella et al., 2011; Moberg et al., 2010; Poel et al., 2016; Pohl et al., 2019) (Veselá & Radiměřský, 2014). Data shows that paper invoices are responsible for 10% of all trees cut down worldwide (Ruisaho, 2014). Global deforestation is a major problem because trees ab- sorb greenhouse gases, contributing to climate change and global warming. In addition to the trees that are cut down, paper invoices have a negative impact on CO2 emissions. Paper invoices produce, on average, four times more CO2 than e-invoices (Federation of Finnish Financial Services, 2010). This difference is partly due to the amount of saved paper and the delivery automation; however, most of the difference results from improved work efficiency due to time savings and consequent emissions savings. Although the technology may also cause some carbon emissions, the switch to e-invoicing reduces the overall environmental impact of invoice processing. It should be noted that e-invoices present only one type of busi- ness document. The effects are multiplied by using other electronic documents such as quotations, purchase orders, despatch advice, etc. In addition to reducing paper con- sumption, organizations that send and receive electronic documents also help to reduce fossil fuel pollution by cut- ting down on post-mail deliveries. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has revolutionised business operations and sectors and will majorly impact e-invoic- ing. With AI, e-invoicing systems can analyse and extract relevant information from e-invoices to predict payment behaviour, optimise invoice delivery times for faster pay- ments and even automate responses to invoice queries. Us- ing machine learning (ML) algo-rithms, AI-enabled e-in- voicing systems can significantly increase the efficiency, accuracy and productivity of e-invoicing systems, as they can process huge volumes of invoices instantane-ously while ensuring much higher accuracy than manual pro- cesses through process automation (Malladhi, 2023). In addition to improving the efficiency and process- ing of e-invoices, AI can detect and pre-vent potential fraud and make the invoicing process resilient to errors and oversights. Through deep cognitive insight, pattern analysis and anomaly detection, AI can instantly and with high accuracy detect fraudulent invoices, differences in amounts or discrepancies in customer data and raise the alarm (Bruin, 2023). 2.3 E-invoicing impediments The lack of progress in e-invoicing adoption in recent years might imply that, despite the rec-ognised benefits of adoption, other key factors for organisations are prevent- ing the uptake of e-invoicing from keeping pace with ex- pectations (Hagsten & Falk, 2020). The low adoption rate of e-invoices could indicate that the diffusion is still at an early stage of the process, dominated by factors that pre- vent enterprises from using e-invoices, such as high costs, lack of system compatibility, increasing frequency of er- rors and organisational inertia (Haag et al., 2013; Marinagi et al., 2015). The main reason for the slow adoption rate of e-invoic- ing in enterprises was related to the lack of demand and resistance to change in financial administration. The level of knowledge and expertise was found to be low, which resulted in a longer adoption time (Edelmann & Sin-tonen, 2006; Salmony & Harald, 2010). Buyer fragmentation could be another reason for the difficulty in adopting such technology (Keifer, 2011). Perhaps the disinterest in e-in- voicing is related to how it is perceived and who will ben- efit from its use (Hernandez-Ortega, 2012). According to Capgemini (Capgemini, 2009), the benefits are wide-rang- ing but potentially greatest for the demand side (buyers), while the environmental benefits may seem abstract. 7 Organizacija, V olume 57 Issue 1, February 2024 Research Papers Empirical studies in Finland (Edelmann & Sintonen, 2006), Sweden (Hagsten & Falk, 2020; Sandberg et al., 2009), Spain (Hernandez-Ortega, 2012), Germany (Haag et al., 2013), the Czech Republic (Veselá & Radiměřský, 2014), Belgium (Poel et al., 2016) and Netherlands (Arend- sen & van De Wijngaert, 2011) show that, in addition to cost, the key factors for e-invoicing adoption are firm size, system compatibility, customer requirements, frequency of errors, usability, information deficit, knowledge, efficien- cy, and underlying ICT infrastructure. 2.4 E-invoicing in Europe In 2010, the European Commission published a Com- munication entitled “Reaping the benefits of electronic invoicing in Europe”, which called on Member States to introduce e-invoicing and to overcome the problems aris- ing from the lack of interoperability of existing e-invoicing systems (European Commission, 2010). European Directive 2014/55/EU on electronic invoic- ing in public procurement was adopted to remove market and trade barriers resulting from different national rules and technical stand-ards (Directive 2014/55/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 April 2014 on Electronic Invoicing in Public Procurement, 2014). In addition to reducing paper-based transactions and simpli- fying, streamlining and automating e-commerce, the main objective of the Directive was to introduce a single Euro- pean standard for e-invoicing developed by CEN (CEN, 2017). The European e-Invoicing Standard EN 16931 ensures interoperability between different Member States and supports cross-border public procurement and e-com- merce. Ac-cording to the Directive, contracting authorities and contracting entities ensure the receipt and processing of electronic invoices that comply with the European elec- tronic invoicing stand-ards. E-invoicing has become a common practice for public administration organisations among EU countries thanks to Directive 2014/55/EU (European Commission, 2023). However, although e-invoicing provides a lot of benefits, the rate of adoption has been slow and currently, only a small percentage of enterprises in Europe use e-invoicing (Arendsen & van De Wijngaert, 2011; Edelmann & Sinto- nen, 2006; Poel et al., 2016). Several previous studies have paid at-tention to e-invoicing adoption, from the business level (Hagsten & Falk, 2020; Hernan-dez-Ortega, 2011; Vrcek & Magdalenic, 2011) to understanding individual user acceptance of e-invoicing (Lian, 2015). The main drivers of e-invoicing adoption are regulato- ry framework, government mandates, customer demand, and supplier innovation (Keifer, 2011). While organisa- tional readiness can play a key role in e-invoicing adop- tion (Penttinen & Tuunainen, 2010; Sandberg et al., 2009), external pressure, such as supplier and customer requests and regulations, can also be strongly associated with the decision to adopt e-invoicing (Hagsten & Falk, 2020). Compatibility and usefulness are the most impor- tant aspects related to the adoption, while perceived us- ability is essential for continued use (Hernandez-Ortega, 2012). E-invoicing may also be more attractive for enter- prises with a large or growing number of invoices (Her- nan-dez-Ortega, 2012). Larger enterprises may have a higher need to simplify their systems and processes and find it easy to implement an e-invoicing system, and their smaller counterparts face difficulties in adopting it due to high investment and integration costs (Fairchild, 2004; Penttinen & Hyytiäinen, 2008; Poel et al., 2016; Sandberg et al., 2009). However, the low adoption rate in European countries is likely to change in the near future as more and more Eu- ropean countries are announcing the introduction of man- datory e-invoicing for all enterprises. Italy is the sole coun- try within the EU with mandatory business-to-business e-invoicing as of January 1, 2019. Poland and Romania will introduce mandatory e-invoicing in 2024, with France, Spain, and Germany expected to follow, but they have yet to announce a rollout timeline (V AT Update, 2023). As a result of mandatory business-to-business e-invoicing in It- aly, tax revenue increased by €3.5 billion in 2019. Of this, €2 billion came from additional V AT revenue, €945 mil- lion from detecting fraudulent input tax credits, and €580 million from direct taxation(OpenPeppol, 2021). In December 2022, the European Commission pub- lished its long-awaited proposal for legisla-tive changes to the “V AT in the digital age - ViDA” initiative (Proposal for a COUNCIL DIRECTIVE Amending Directive 2006/112/ EC as Regards V AT Rules for the Digital Age, 2022). The ViDA proposal includes mandatory e-reporting and e-in- voicing for intra-EU transactions. Intra-EU transactions refer to commercial transactions between different coun- tries of the European Union. The ViDA proposal makes e-invoicing the default invoicing method. Unstructured electronic formats, such as PDF, will also no longer be considered e-invoices from a tax point of view. 2.5 E-invoicing in Slovenia According to the European Commission’s DESI 2022 (The Digital Economy and Society In-dex), Slovenia ranks fourth among Member States in the e-invoicing category (European Commission, 2021a). DESI is an index summa- rising important indicators of digitalisation de-velopment in EU Member States and their digital competitiveness. The index for the e-invoicing indicator, which was only 2.33% for Slovenia in 2015, has jumped to 58.4% in 2022 due to the introduction of the legally mandatory use of e-invoices for busi-ness-to-government transactions. The beginnings of standardisation of business elec- tronic documents in Slovenia date back to 2001, when the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia, on 8 Organizacija, V olume 57 Issue 1, February 2024 Research Papers the initiative of enter-prises, launched the eSLOG pro- ject “Electronic Commerce of the Slovenian Economy” (Slo-venian National eBusiness Centre., 2023). The pro- ject involved experts from more than 90 large enterprises. It resulted in the development of an eSLOG standard for electronic business documents, which today includes pur- chase orders, despatch advice, payment reminders, state- ments of account and invoices in XML format. It is impor- tant to note that eSLOG doc-uments are widely supported in enterprise business information systems. Many service provid-ers enable electronic document exchange between business partners. A key step towards the wider use of e-invoicing in Slo- venia was the mandatory e-invoicing to the public sector as of 1 January 2015. Since then, the issuer is obliged to issue an invoice to the public sector user in eSLOG for- mat and may attach a visualisation of the invoice in PDF or other formats and annexes. The exchange of e-invoices with public sector users shall occur exclusively through the single entry and exit point of the Republic of Slove- nia’s Public Pay-ments Administration (PPA). Issuers may choose to send e-invoices via an e-invoicing service pro- vider that has signed a contract with the PPA. In contrast, smaller issuers may enter in-voices manually on the PPA’s online portal (Uprava Republike Slovenije za javna plači- la, 2023). A key advantage of the Slovenian e-invoicing ecosys- tem is that business software solution providers have in- tegrated e-invoicing exchange services offered by service providers into their software solutions. This enables their end-users to fully automate the processes for sending and receiving e-invoices and other business electronic docu- ments, as they do not need to use additional software solu- tions to copy manually, import or export documents but instead per-form legally compliant all processes through existing software solutions already in use in the enterprise. Despite all these achievements and positive effects of the e-invoicing ecosystem in Slovenia, which enables easy issuance, sending, exchange, receipt and processing of e-invoices, the mass use of e-invoices among enterprises has not yet occurred. However, a change in this area is expected in the future. The government has announced that it will draft a proposal for a law on the exchange of e-in- voices and other e-documents, following the example of other Euro-pean countries, which will make the exchange of e-invoices mandatory for all business entities. As the introduction of this law is likely to take some time, it is important to better understand the current status of busi- ness-to-business e-invoicing and the reasons for it now. 3 Research method To analyse the development and current status of e-in- voicing in Slovenia, a questionnaire was prepared in coop- eration between the Slovenian National eBusiness Centre, the Slovenian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the ICT Horizontal Network, the Digital Innovation Hub of Slovenia and the Faculty of Organisational Sciences of the University of Maribor. The questionnaire was prepared based on a literature review and the participation of do- main ex-perts in the field of digital business and digital transformation, e-invoicing and eSLOG stand-ards. Our research aimed to investigate e-invoicing adoption in a wider range of enterprises, so we chose the survey method. We decided to conduct an online survey, which allows us to capture and obtain the views of a wider popu- lation in a relatively short time and in an economical way (Lefever et al., 2007). In addition, this way of data gather- ing makes it faster and easier to prepare the data for subse- quent statistical analysis (Bakla et al., 2013). The questionnaire consisted of 22 questions divided into the following sections: organisation demographics, e-invoicing usage, perceived advantages, barriers and incentives to e-invoicing usage and respondents’ demo- graphics. Prior to distribution, the questionnaire was tested with 10 domain experts and adjusted where needed. The survey was distributed to their members by digital transformation supporting organiza-tions and associations (Digital Innovation Hub Slovenia, Chamber of Commerce and Industry, e-invoicing service providers). In the survey, we used the definition of the size of an enterprise following the European Commission’s regu- lations, meaning micro-enterprises with 1-9 employees, small enterprises with 10-49 employees, medium-sized enterprises with 50-249 employees, and large enterprises with more than 250 employees, respectively. The survey was carried out via the online service 1ka. arnes.si between 18 April and 2 May 2023, and it reached 1638 respondents, of which 901 started the survey. In total, 284 (17%) respondents completed the survey. The collected data were transferred to SPSS 28 soft- ware to perform frequency analysis and descriptive statis- tics to calculate shares of different categories of e-invoic- ing usage. Further on, we ran one sample t-test to evaluate the importance (on a 5-point Likert scale from 1 being “not important at all” to 5 “very important”) of identified advan- tages, barriers and incentives for the usage of e-invoicing. If the variable mean value was not statistically significant- ly lower than 4 (with a confidence level of 95%), we con- firmed the importance of the evaluated varia-ble. After the assessment of which advantages, barriers and incentives are important to organ-izations for e-invoicing adoption, we run an independent sample t-test to identify if there are any statistically important differences about important advantages, barriers and incentives between organizations with lower and higher extent of e-invoicing usage. 9 Organizacija, V olume 57 Issue 1, February 2024 Research Papers 4 Survey Results 4.1 Descriptive statistics 284 representatives of organizations from 75 different locations in Slovenia and 19 different industries took part in the survey. The size structure of the participating organ- isations in terms of number of employees was 117 (41.2%) micro, 115 small (40.5%), 45 medium-sized (15.8%) and 7 (2.5%) large organisations. The respondents were em- ployed in the following positions: 62 (22.2%) executive directors, 26 (9.2%) finance managers, 12 (4.2%) IT man- agers, 51 (18%) accounting managers, 31 (10.9%) other business managers, 18 (6.3%) IT officers and 77 (27.1%) employees in other positions. An analysis of the sending and receiving of invoices by invoice format and organizations size shows that the ma- jority of micro (89.7%), small (90.4%), medium (86.7%) and large (85.7%) organisations still receive paper invoic- es. A slightly smaller proportion of micro (73.3%), small (73.9%), medium (86.7%), and large (71.4%) organi- sations still send paper invoices. A similar proportion of organisations that receive and send paper invoices also receive and send them in PDF format via e-mail. A much smaller proportion of organisations receive (39.7% of mi- cro, 45.2% of small, 40% of medium-sized, 42.9% of large organizations) and send (28.4% of mi-cros, 27% of small, 24.4% of medium-sized and 28.6% of large organizations) invoices in PDF format with e-signature. The most commonly used standard for e-invoices is the national eSLOG format, which is used for receiving (65.5% of micro, 71.3% of small, 77.8% of medium and 57.1% of large organi-sations) and sending e-invoices (76.7% of micro, 78.3% of small, 86.7% of medium and 85.7% of large organisations). Other e-invoicing stand- ards, such as EANCOM, EDIFACT, and UBL, are used less and more in large organisations (28.6% for receiving and 14.3% for sending e-invoices). Furthermore, we analyzed shares of sending and re- ceiving of e-invoices by partners, which shows that organ- isations exchange e-invoices mostly with suppliers 85.2% and customers 82.7%. A slightly lower share of e-invoices is exchanged with the public administration, 70.4%, which is reasonable as not all organizations do business with pub- lic administration, where e-invoicing is obligatory. A lower share of e-invoices is exchanged with logistics pro-viders (28.5%), retailers (37.7%) and consumers (20.4%). The re- sults also showed that organi-sations exchange e-invoices much more with domestic partners (54,2%) than exchang- es with foreign partners(14,6%). We also analysed the proportion of e-invoices received and sent compared to other invoice forms (Figure 1). The results showed that, on average, organisations receive 18.3% and send 23.22% of invoices in eSLOG format and receive only 0.9% and send 0.82% of e-invoices in other e-invoicing standards. The highest average proportion of invoices received, 40.73%, and 36.62%, sent, are in paper format. Furthermore, the average proportion of 4.36% of invoices received and 5.34 of invoices sent is in PDF for- mat with e-signature. On average, organiza-tions receive 35.71% and send 33.99% of invoices in PDF format. We were also interested in how organizations generate e-invoices. The majority of organisa-tions use an ERP (En- terprise Resource Planning) solution for generating e-in- voices, 57.8%, 27.4% use a dedicated software application, 22.6% use the PPA portal, 17.8% use a web ap-plication, 13.5% have developed their custom e-invoicing software Figure 1: Percentages of invoices received and sent by the form of occurrence 10 Organizacija, V olume 57 Issue 1, February 2024 Research Papers solution, 11.5% use a business partner software solution, and 4.4% use a web service from a business partner. 4.2 Advantages, barriers and Incentives for e-invoicing adoption To analyse the importance of e-invoicing usage advan- tages, barriers and incentives for adop-tion, we performed a one-sample t-test to test the statistical significance of im- portance (test value 4 – meaning important on a 5-point Likert scale) for each defined variable. With one sample t-test, we tested if the mean values of variables statistical- ly significantly differentiate (at 95% confidence level) and are lower from value 4 as defined criteria for importance on a 5-point Likert scale. The T-test for e-invoicing usage advantages (Table 1) confirmed that organizations perceive all investigated ad- vantages as statistically important, except “improved cash flow and finances”. The following e-invoicing advantages were considered as important (in ranking order): busi-ness process automation, faster processing of invoices, faster delivery of invoices, improved business effectiveness, reduction of employee time, reduction of costs, business process tracking, increase of productivity, lower error rate, better relationships with customers and suppliers, better business process compliance. Furthermore, we ran one sample t-test (Table 2) to identify statistically significant barriers to e-invoicing us- age. Results have shown the following barriers as signif- icantly important (in ranked order): suppliers do not send e-invoices, customers do not receive e-invoices, una-ware- ness of the benefits of using e-invoices, and lack of knowl- edge to implement e-invicing. T-test of the importance of e-invoicing usage incen- tives is shown in Table 3. The analysis shows the extent to which organisations (1 strongly disagree - 5 strongly agree) agree with the incentives given for e-invoicing. The one sample t-test shows that the following incentives would most likely encourage organisations to adopt e-in- voicing (results in ranking order): re-duced initial costs of implementing e-invoicing, increased awareness of the benefits of e-invoicing, business software providers inte- grating e-invoicing into their solutions, customer require- ments for the use of e-invoicing, education on e-invoicing, digitalization financial grants, incentives from the govern- ment and institutions, calls for tenders for digitalization, publicly presented examples of good practice, public di- rectory of business entities for the ex-change of e-invoic- es, government to legislate mandatory e-invoicing for all companies, public catalogue of service providers and their solutions. Table 1: T-test of means for the importance of e-invoicing usage advantages e-invoicing usage advantages Test Value = 4 t df Significance Mean Difference 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference One-Sided p Two-Sided p Lower Upper Business process automation 8.924 269 <.001 <.001 .481 .38 .59 Faster processing of invoices 8.575 272 <.001 <.001 .469 .36 .58 Faster delivery of invoices 8.499 274 <.001 <.001 .451 .35 .56 Improved business effectiveness 6.818 256 <.001 <.001 .362 .26 .47 Reduction of employee time 5.590 270 <.001 <.001 .314 .20 .42 Reduction of costs 4.789 273 <.001 <.001 .296 .17 .42 Business process tracking 4.968 271 <.001 <.001 .287 .17 .40 Increase of productivity 4.336 267 <.001 <.001 .269 .15 .39 Lower error rate 4.407 271 <.001 <.001 .268 .15 .39 Better relationships with customers and suppliers -.357 255 .361 .722 -.023 -.15 .11 Better business process compliance -.525 261 .300 .600 -.034 -.16 .09 Improved cash flow and finances -2.728 249 .003 .007* -.196* -.34 -.05 * p-value is lower than .05 at a confidence level of 95%, and the mean value is lower than 4 11 Organizacija, V olume 57 Issue 1, February 2024 Research Papers Table 2: T-test of means for the importance of e-invoicing usage barriers e-invoicing usage barriers Test Value = 4 t df Significance Mean Difference 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference One-Sided p Two-Sided p Lower Upper Suppliers do not send e-invoices -.402 244 .344 .688 -.024 -.14 .10 Customers do not receive e-invoices -.599 242 .275 .550 -.037 -.16 .08 Unawareness of the benefits of using e-invoices -1.925 239 .028 .055 -.112 -.23 .00 Lack of knowledge to implement e-invoicing -1.885 241 .030 .061 -.124 -.25 .01 The complexity of implementing e-invoicing -4.643 237 <.001 <.001* -.311* -.44 -.18 High costs of e-invoicing IT imple- mentation -4.263 226 <.001 <.001* -.330* -.48 -.18 Information security concerns -7.584 237 <.001 <.001* -.534* -.67 -.40 Lack of management support -7.779 229 <.001 <.001* -.652* -.82 -.49 Limited IT capabilities in the organ- isation -8.740 230 <.001 <.001* -.688* -.84 -.53 Low level of e-business adoption -8.265 220 <.001 <.001* -.729* -.90 -.55 Not aware of e-invoicing providers and solutions -13.314 223 <.001 <.001* -1.112* -1.28 -.95 * p-value is lower than .05 at a confidence level of 95%, and the mean value is lower than 4 After assessment of which advantages, barriers and incentives (Table 1-3) are important for organizations for e-invoicing adoption, we aimed to identify if there are any statistically im-portant differences in opinions between or- ganizations with lower and high extent of e-invoicing us- age. We defined criteria for a greater extent of e-invoicing usage by average percentage (20%) with added standard deviation (22%) of e-invoicing usage. The calculated crite- ria for a higher extent of e-invoicing usage was set to 42%. This criteria formed two dis-tinct groups of organizations with different extents of e-invoicing usage. A lower e-in- voicing usage group consists of 186 organizations, and a higher extent of e-invoicing usage group con-sists of 41 organizations. To compare two groups with lower and higher extent of e-invoicing usage, we ran an inde-pendent T-Test with Levene’s test for equality of variances to test if the as- sumption on the homogeneity of variances was violated (Table 4). Independent T-test identified statistically significant and practical important differences be-tween the two com- pared groups with a confidence level of 95%. Organiza- tions with greater e-invoicing usage perceive the follow- ing advantages as more important than those with lower e-invoicing usage: higher business process automation, re- duced employee time and increased productivity. Further- more, organizations with a greater extent of e-invoicing usage perceive as a more important incentive that software providers integrate e-invoicing into their business infor- mation systems than those with lower e-invoicing usage. Organizations with lower usage of e-invoicing report- ed higher integration costs with existing systems as a more important barrier than those with higher e-invoicing usage. 5 Discussion The survey results have shown that paper and PDF invoices are still the predominant format for exchanging invoices. 40.73%% of invoices are received, 36.62% are sent in paper format, 40.70% of invoices are received, and 39.33% are sent in PDF format (with or without e-signa- ture). In all structured electronic formats, 19.20% of in- voices are received, and 24.04% are sent, with the vast ma- 12 Organizacija, V olume 57 Issue 1, February 2024 Research Papers Table 3: T-test of means for the importance of e-invoicing usage incentives e-invoicing usage incentives Test Value = 4 t df Significance Mean Difference 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference One-Sided p Two-Sided p Lower Upper Reduced initial costs of implementing e-invoicing 6.805 254 <.001 <.001 .353 .25 .46 Increased awareness of the benefits of e-invoicing 6.070 256 <.001 <.001 .307 .21 .41 Business software providers integrate e-invoicing into their solutions 5.485 246 <.001 <.001 .304 .19 .41 Customer requirements for the use of e-invoicing 4.306 253 <.001 <.001 .228 .12 .33 Education on e-invoicing 4.378 255 <.001 <.001 .227 .12 .33 Digitalization financial grants 3.266 246 <.001 .001 .219 .09 .35 Incentives from the government and institutions 1.724 248 .043 .086 .112 -.02 .24 Calls for tenders for digitalization 1.523 243 .065 .129 .102 -.03 .23 Publicly presented examples of good practice .653 245 .257 .514 .041 -.08 .16 Public directory of business entities for the exchange of e-invoices .434 242 .332 .665 .029 -.10 .16 Government to legislate mandatory e-invoicing for all companies -.739 248 .230 .461 -.052 -.19 .09 Public catalogue of service providers and their solutions -1.810 242 .036 .071 -.119 -.25 .01 Competitors use e-invoicing -2.771 253 .003 .006* -.189* -.32 -.05 * p-value is lower than .05 at a confidence level of 95%, and the mean value is lower than 4 jority of these invoices exchanged in the eSLOG standard. This distribution also aligns with the findings in the Billen- tis reports, where PDF and paper are the dominant formats for exchanging invoices (Koch, 2016). As expected, medi- um-sized and large enterprises receive the highest number of e-invoices, as they are generally better IT-supported for receiving e-invoices. In contrast, many smaller enterpris- es, especially micro-enterprises, lack the IT solutions and expertise to deal with e-invoices. The higher proportion of structured e-invoices sent than re-ceived is because 70.4% of the organisations surveyed exchange invoices with the public sector, for which eSLOG invoice format is manda- tory. Although 81.1% of the respondents indicated sending e-invoices in a structured eSLOG format, these represent only 23.22% of all exchanged invoices. This confirms our study’s assumption that although many organisations have the technological and organisational support to send e-in- voices, they do not use this method of exchange to a large extent for various reasons. In addition to the assessment of the current state of e-invoicing adoption in organizations in Slovenia, we also identified statistically significantly important advantages (Table 1), barriers (Table 2), and incentives (Table 3) for e-invoicing perceived by survey respondents. It is no-tice- able that respondents perceived the majority of e-invoicing usage advantages as necessary. The most important advan- tages are business process automation, faster processing of invoices, faster delivery of invoices, improved business effectiveness and business process tracking. Significantly recognized were the reduction of employees’ time, reduc- tion of costs, and lower error rates, which led to increased productivity. There were only two benefits that were not recognized as statistically important. The first is “im- proved cash flow and finances”, which is understandable, 13 Organizacija, V olume 57 Issue 1, February 2024 Research Papers Levene’s Test for Equality of Variances t-test for Equality of Means F Sig. t df Significance Mean Differ- ence Std. Error Difference 95% Confi- dence Interval of the Differ- ence One- Sided p Two- Sided p Lower Upper Business process automa- tion Equal variances assumed 18.447 0.000* 2.701 225 0.004 0.007 0.402 0.149 0.109 0.695 Equal variances not assumed 4.332 146.866 0.000 0.000* 0.402 0.093 0.218 0.585 Reduction of employee time Equal variances assumed 7.352 0.007* 1.490 225 0.069 0.138 0.240 0.161 -0.078 0.559 Equal variances not assumed 2.033 96.065 0.022 0.045* 0.240 0.118 0.006 0.475 Increase of produc- tivity Equal variances assumed 2.203 .139 -2.113 219 .018 .036* -.297 .141 -.574 -.020 Equal variances not assumed -2.156 67.697 .017 .035 -.297 .138 -.572 -.022 High integration costs with existing systems Equal variances assumed .604 .438 2.251 194 .013 .026* .476 .212 .059 .894 Equal variances not assumed 2.112 52.411 .020 .039 .476 .226 .024 .929 Software providers integrate e-invoicing Equal variances assumed 10.397 .001* -2.700 210 .004 .007 -.373 .138 -.645 -.101 Equal variances not assumed -3.573 101.437 <.001 <.001* -.373 .104 -.579 -.166 as e-invoicing is about business process simplification and optimization rather than payment and financial discipline. Respondents also did not recognize “better relationships with customers and suppliers” as an important benefit of e-invoicing. This might be related to an invoice being the last business document in the buyer-supplier business transaction process. Many other activities and factors lead towards sustainable and trustworthy buyer-supplier re- lationships (from the quality of products and services to trustworthy business operations and cooperation). Surveyed organizations recognized the important bar- riers: suppliers do not send e-invoices, customers do not receive e-invoices, lack of knowledge about the benefits of using e-invoices and lack of knowledge to implement e-in- voices. The first two barriers are related to the busi-ness Table 4: Independent T-test for comparing groups with high/low e-invoicing usage * p-value is lower than .05 at confidence level 95% environment of an organization. If business partners are not using e-invoicing or any other e-document or particu- lar information technology, this also impacts the organiza- tion itself. Lack of awareness and knowledge have always been the most important barriers to adopting information technology or business innovation. Therefore, different stakeholders in the coun-try’s entire ecosystem (including policymakers) need much effort and many incentives to raise awareness of digitalization opportunities and support their implementation. Respondents are encouraged to consider almost all in- centives that could support the broader adoption of e-in- voicing (see Table 3). Incentives are related to government funding schemes, some already in place through the Dig- ital Innovation Hub of Slovenia and other programs. It is 14 Organizacija, V olume 57 Issue 1, February 2024 Research Papers also crucial to provide legislation for mandatory e-invoic- ing between enterprises. In addition, a public directory of business entities for exchanging e-invoices and a public catalogue of ser-vice providers and solutions on a national level would be beneficial. In addition, training, ed-ucation, and learning from best practices have been recognized as important to obtain needed knowledge for e-invoicing im- plementation. Implementing e-invoicing in business eco- systems and supply chains is also considered a significant incentive. Finally, without proper infor-mation technology and service infrastructure, wider e-invoicing adoption is impossible. We also examined how more advanced organizations with a greater extent of e-invoicing us-age are perceiving e-invoicing usage benefits, barriers and incentives com- pared to those with lower use of e-invoicing (see Table 4). We can conclude, as expected, that those organizations with higher e-invoicing usage perceive business process automation, reduction of employee time and increase of productivity as more important advantages compared to those with lower e-invoicing use. This can be explained by the fact that organisations with a higher extent of e-in- voicing are more aware of the advantages of e-invoicing because they recognise these us-age advantages in their work. E-invoicing reduces the need for manual data entry, validation, and reconciliation, saving time and resources for both the sender and the receiver of the invoice. E-in- voicing frees up em-ployees from tedious and repetitive tasks related to invoice processing, such as printing, mail- ing, scanning, filing, and archiving. This can increase em- ployee satisfaction and productivity and reduce labor costs and errors. E-invoicing is one of the important catalysts for digitaliza-tion and sustainable development for enterprises and economies. By adopting e-invoicing, businesses can improve their efficiency, profitability, customer satisfac - tion, and environmental impact. All these benefits contrib- ute not only to more profitable but also to more sustainable business operations. We can conclude that e-invoicing adoption is also cost-sensitive. Therefore, we find that a good practice ap- proach is for software providers to integrate e-invoicing into their business solution, as organizations with higher e-invoicing usage point out. Most e-invoices (57.8%) are prepared with enterprise resource planning (ERP) solu- tions, ranging from global vendors such as SAP and Dy- namics NA V to various Slovenian ERP vendors. All ma- jor Slovenian ERP business software solution providers have integrated the services of e-invoicing providers into their software solutions. This has enabled organizations to automate the sending and receiving of e-invoices and to perform the entire e-invoicing process within a single software solution without unnec-essary manual copying, importing or storing of documents. The cost sensitivity of implementing e-invoicing should be considered, especial- ly for micro and small organisations, as they have fewer staff, IT support and financial resources available. For en- terprises that only issue a few invoices per year, various online e-invoicing portals are available. An example is the unrestricted use of the PPA (national) web portal for gen- erating and issuing e-invoices to the public sector (limited to 100 hundred invoices per year), used by almost a quarter of the respondents. Organizations with lower e-invoicing usage perceive the barrier of high integration costs with existing systems as more important. Thus, this might be the reason for low- er e-invoicing usage. Given the integrations already made in the software solutions available to organisations, there is also a lack of knowledge to implement e-invoicing in these organisations, which was also identified as one of the more important barriers (see Table 2) that can be addressed by raising awareness. The survey participants identified in- creased awareness of the benefits of e-invoicing and re- duced initial costs of implementing e-invoicing as the two most important drivers (Table 3). 6 Conclusions In this paper, we present an insight into the develop- ment of e-invoicing in the small EU coun-try Slovenia. We present the efforts of various stakeholders who have ad- vocated and contrib-uted significantly to establishing and expanding e-invoicing in Slovenia. In the theoretical part of the paper, we also describe important regulations, legis- lation, and policies in Slovenia and the EU that have sig- nificantly impacted this field’s evolution. The current situ- ation of e-invoicing in Slovenia is based on an established ecosystem, which ensures interoperability for electronic document exchange. However, we still have enormous opportunities to improve digitalization of e-invoices and other business documents, processes and entire business mod-els. It is important to note that we also show the signifi- cant advantages of electronic document exchange in terms of generating significant time and financial savings and reducing environ-mental impact. Considering the large number of invoices exchanged (approximately 30 billion invoices exchanged per year), there is a huge potential to reduce CO2 emissions by 1 million tonnes per year by re- ducing paper consumption and energy costs for transpor- tation. The num-bers are impressive; however, the huge potential of digital transformation of enterprises and socie- ties and its impact on sustainable development and sustain- ability has not yet been entirely revealed. In the main part of the paper, we present the survey results on developing e-invoicing among organisations in Slovenia. 284 organisations participated in the survey, whose representatives fully responded to the online ques- tionnaire. The findings of the survey show that despite the 15 Organizacija, V olume 57 Issue 1, February 2024 Research Papers legal regulation and mandatory exchange of electronic in- voices with the public sector, e-invoicing has not yet been widely extended to business-to-business transactions. Most en-terprises still exchange invoices in paper and PDF format to a large extent. To encourage further digitisation of business process- es and digital transformation of organisa-tions, we have identified the need for legislation supporting the manda- tory exchange of e-invoices in a standardised format for all business entities. This type of legal regulation of man- datory exchange of e-invoices between organisations has already been introduced in some European countries (Italy and Serbia), and several countries are preparing to intro- duce it (Bel-gium, France, Poland, Spain and Romania). We expect this regulation to be introduced in Slovenia in the near future as well. This will ensure the widespread use of e-invoicing and the resulting benefits, increased com- petitiveness of organisations and significant environmental impact. The widespread use of e-invoices among organisations is also the basis and potential for fur-ther development of digitalization and digital transformation of enterprises. With the compre-hensive digitisation of all business docu- ments, related business processes can also be digital-ized. This results in increased productivity and, thus, the com- petitiveness and sustainability of not only the individual organisation but also the entire economy in Slovenia. An important role in these endeavours will also be played by the national registry of e-invoice recipients, which was established in April 2018 under the Readiness of Slovenian e-invoicing (ROSE) measure, in line with the European Directive 2014/55/EU. The register contains structured information on how e-invoices are received by each (organization) recipient’s sys-tem. Currently, the registry is maintained by the National eBusiness Centre, which operates within the Chamber of Commerce and In- dustry. In the future, it would be necessary to estab-lish this register on a national level and ensure cross-border interoperability. SMEs supporting organizations (chambers of com- merce, IT service providers, educational in-stitutions, var- ious associations for digitalization and innovation hubs) will continue to play an important role in sharing knowl- edge about opportunities for digitisation, digitalization, and digital transformation. It will be crucial to ensure ad- equate co-funding and appropriate solu-tions for different types of organisations. Micro and small enterprises are particularly vulnera-ble in this respect. Therefore, appro- priate services will have to be provided for their specific needs. The results of our study provide important informa- tion on the development of the use of e-invoicing and the opportunities for further development of the electronic exchange of other business documents. It provides impor- tant information for decision-makers and public admin-is- trations to take appropriate measures and incentives and support establishing the appropriate ecosystem for digital transformation in the country. The paper also contributes to a better un-derstanding of the advantages, barriers and incentives of e-invoicing and digitisation of other business documents for practitioners on their path to digital and sus- tainability transformation. However, like any research, also our research has lim- itations. The most significant limitation stems from the sampling method, as the survey mainly involved organi- sations that have al-ready taken specific steps in digitali- zation. To balance the results, we compared them with the national digitalization results conducted annually by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia (based on EUROSTAT). Nevertheless, we did not detect any major discrepancies. Where any were detected, we aimed to pro- vide reasonable explanations from observation and expert knowledge in the field. The limitations also provide oppor- tunities for future research. Gathering data from various sources with different research methods and approaches is im-portant to get deep insights and better understand the field’s evolution. In our case, the fol-lowing research op- portunity will be after the adoption of mandatory e-invoic- ing between all business entities, which will happen in the next few years. 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Organiza- tion Science, 18(5), 749–762. https://doi.org/10.1287/ orsc.1070.0307 Rok Bojanc is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Information Technologies University of Primorska. He is employed by ZZI and is the head of the ZZI Future Lab research group. His research focuses mainly on digital transformation, interoperability, e-commerce, information security and compliance. He has more than 20 years of experience in managing and working on various national and inter-national projects on digital transformation and information technology solutions development. He is the chairman of the Slovenian 19 Organizacija, V olume 57 Issue 1, February 2024 Research Papers National Forum on e-Invoicing and participates in several international and national associations in the field of interoperability and standardisation. Andreja Pucihar is Professor of Information Systems at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences University of Maribor and Head of the undergraduate and Master’s programs in Organization and Management of Information Systems. She is also the head of the eCenter - Digital busi-ness lab. Her research focuses mainly on digital innovation, digital transformation and digital business models. She has more than 20 years of experience with industrial and international European projects, mainly focusing on digitalization, digital transformation and supporting small and medium- sized enterprises in digital transformation. Since 2009, she has been the Program Committee Chair of the international conference for digital businesses - Bled eCon-ference. She is a member and co-editor of international journals with the impact factor “Elec-tronic Markets - The International Journal on Networked Business” in the “Journal of Theoret-ical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research”. Gregor Lenart is an Assistant Professor of Information Systems at the Faculty of Organiza-tional Sciences University of Maribor. His research focuses on business information systems, business process management, digital transformation and business model innovation. He has more than 20 years of experience with international European projects, mainly focusing on digitalization of small and medium-sized enterprises and digital transformation. E-računi: Spodbujevalci digitalizacije in trajnostnega potovanja Ozadje in namen: Digitalizacija prinaša številne priložnosti za digitalno in trajnostno preo-brazbo. Eden od prvih korakov na tej poti je digitalizacija poslovnih dokumentov in poslovnih procesov. Evropska komisija je prepoznala prednosti digitalizacije, zlasti na področju e-izdajanja računov, ki lahko pomembno prispeva h gospodarski blaginji in se uskladi s cilji javnih politik, kot sta zmanjšanje primanjkljaja in trajnostni razvoj. Kljub uspešni uvedbi upo-rabe e-računov v javnem sektorju je razširjenost izdajanja e-računov pri transakcijah med pod-jetji (B2B) presenetljivo nizka. Ta raziskava se osredotoča na Slovenijo, majhno evropsko dr-žavo, ki je leta 2015 uvedla obvezno izdajanje e-računov med podjetji in javnim sektorjem. Metode: Da bi raziskali uporabo e-računov v širši populaciji, smo zasnovali spletno anketo, ki smo jo izvedli med 284 organizacijami v Sloveniji. Zbrane podatke smo analizirali s progra-mom SPSS 28. Za oceno pomembnosti identifi- ciranih prednosti, ovir in spodbud za uporabo e-računov smo uporabili T-test. Izvedli smo tudi T-test za ugotavljanje statistično pomembnih razlik o pomembnosti prednosti, ovir in spodbud med organizacijami z manjšim in večjim ob-segom uporabe e-računov. Rezultati: Rezultati so pokazali, da organizacije dobro prepoznavajo prednosti uporabe e-računov in jih dojemajo kot pomembne. Najpomembnejše ovire pri uvajanju e-računov so povezane s poslovnim okoljem ter nepoznavanjem in pomanjkanjem znanja o tem, kako uvesti e-račune. Želene spodbude za širše uvajanje e-izdajanja računov so povezane z enostavnejšo in cenejšo tehnično izvedbo, zagotavljanjem usposabljanja in izobraževanja, ki vključuje najboljše prakse, ter z razpoložljivostjo državnih subvencij in drugih podpornih ukrepov na državni ravni, vključno z zakonodajo, javnim imenikom poslovnih subjektov, ki uporabljajo elektronsko iz-menjavo dokumentov, in ponudnikov storitev. Zaključek: Članek podaja pomembne informacije za odločevalce in javno upravo, da sprejmejo ustrezne ukrepe in spodbude za nadaljnjo podporo širši uporabi e-računov in izmenjave drugih poslovnih e-dokumentov za boljše izkoriščanje priložnosti digitalizacije. Ključne besede: e-računi, Uvedba, Digitalizacija, Trajnost, EU, Slovenija