Oxalis – The Story
The PEPPOL infrastructure is built upon a network of access points. The supplier submits their invoice to their access point. This searches through a catalog (ELMA is the Norwegian catalog) to determine which access point the buyer is using, and then sends the invoice to this access point. PEPPOL BIS is the EU's invoicing format. The Norwegian format, EHF, satisfies PEPPOL BIS, but contains additions as a result of regulations that apply specifically to Norway. (Image: Difi)
In 2012, Difi (Norwegian directorate for the promotion of digital collaboration) announced a competition to develop software for such access points. The competition was won by "Oxalis" from a Norwegian actor within electronic invoicing (EHF). In accordance with the conditions for the competition, Oxalis is distributed as open source.
Since its completion, Oxalis has been managed and further developed by Difi Procurement.
In 2019, it was decided that the procurement part of Difi should be transferred to the Norwegian Agency for Public and Financial Management (DFØ). Oxalis would not be part of this transaction. A new actor, who could take care of what had been created and had gradually come to gain significant use, was therefore sought. An absolute requirement in this context was to find a neutral actor without a directly expressed goal of making a large profit from Oxalis.
The choice was NorStella
In 1959, the UN agency, UN/ECE (United Nations / Economic Committee for Europe) took the initiative to simplify and standardize trade documents. The original business idea of NorStella was thus a reality (vision).
The starting point was a simplification of trading procedures, based on manual processes and routines. However, in the early 1970s, technology came to play an increasing role in this work. Then, EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) arrived and made it possible to transfer information from trading documents electronically.
NorStella's driving task is to contribute to the digitalization of Norway by being a neutral meeting place that actively contributes to increased collaboration across industries, sectors and professions. Active contribution involves inviting to conferences and workshops and, if necessary, take the initiative to establish network groups to dive deeper within certain areas. Through this, the main goal is to contribute to efficiency and value creation in public and private companies, by being a neutral driver, without economic motives, for
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Simplification of regulations, processes and procedures within national and international industry/trade, both in the private and public sectors.
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Efficient implementation and profitable use of standardized data exchange between organizations/units.
In other words, NorStella appeared to be the obvious choice for the future management of Oxalis.
In the period since 2012, Oxalis has undergone significant changes and is now a current, popular product.
Since its inception, Oxalis has gradually come to be the most widely used software for the exchange of messages between sender and recipient (via access points) in the PEPPOL network.
Oxalis is 100% Peppol compatible. Peppol is a standard that the whole world can use in connection with digital trading transactions such as catalog services, orders, call-offs, and invoices.
More than 50% of all such transactions in the whole world today go through an access point based on Oxalis.
NorStella is a proud manager of the software and the opportunities it creates for digital collaboration.