ABSIA held our Annual Strategic Planning Day on 1 March 2019 in Sydney. Throughout the day, our Board and staff discussed ways to provide more value to our Members and the strategic way forward for both ABSIA and the industry. With many initiatives now underway including STP for 19 or less employees and e-Invoicing, we discussed how we will work alongside our Members and the industry to achieve the best possible outcomes. 

ABSIA are excited about the year ahead for the business software industry and we look forward to communicating more with our Members and providing them with new services. 

Following the recent announcement by the Prime Ministers of Australia and New Zealand to adopt the Pan-European Public Procurement (PEPPOL) interoperability framework, ABSIA are now able to share more information about our prior engagement with OpenPEPPOL. 

After the Small Business Digital Taskforce (SBDT) provided their report to the Government in March 2018, the Government then released their response in December 2018. Read more about the outcomes of the response, the Empowering to Go Digital Program and the opportunity to apply for the non-government organisation role to lead this program. 

The ATO are hosting a PEPPOL e-Invoicing Engagement Forum on 10 April 2019 at the Rydges Sydney Central. This forum is designed for those in the industry to come and learn the PEPPOL essentials so that you can start your e-Invoicing design and build. You will hear from PEPPOL, Government and industry experts, including ABSIA, about:

• The Government's e-Invoicing direction
• The steps to becoming PEPPOL compliant
• PEPPOL experiences, what DSPs are doing to get ready and the lessons they have learnt

Spaces are limited but if you cannot make it in person, the ATO will be streaming the event live. We will pass this information on shortly. 

We are hosting a webinar with NPP Australia at the end of the month. Keep an eye out for more details that will be released over the next week.