2025 – the big year for digital migration

The latest development is an announcement by Ministers Melissa Lee and Andrew Bayley (late October) that Rule 51 of the Government Procurement Rules will be rewritten to require that many more agencies implement eInvoicing send and receive capability by 1 January 2026.  eInvoicing is the secure digital exchange of invoice information directly between buyers’ and suppliers’ financial systems, even if these systems are different.

The new eInvoicing mandate will apply to any agency sending and/or receiving over 2,000 domestic trade invoices annually. ACC, Waka Kotahi and NZ Police are among those now to join the broad digital migration.  There will be consultation over the next three months on plans for also requiring certain government suppliers to shift to eInvoicing in all their dealings with agencies.

Faster payments are another major element. From 1 January 2024, around 135 government agencies will be required to start paying 90% of all their domestic trade invoices within 10 business days. Once the new eInvoicing mandate takes effect in January 2026, those agencies will be paying 95% of eInvoices within five business days.

NZBNs and their attached core business information are critical enablers in all digitalisation of processes and transactions. This is especially so after the Cabinet agreed in August to give individual agencies a mandate to require an NZBN from any business or other entity “as a condition of service”. The requirement must be consistent with the agency’s legislation and with the NZBN Act.

An NZBN is a GS1 standards-based Global Location Number (GLN) – and any NZBN holder can use its globally-unique set of numbers to also identify individual locations or operating units. Since the NZBN launch in 2016, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has built a register of core business information on each NZBN holder. Core information includes legal name, trading name, and owners/directors' names and addresses.

The August Cabinet decision will make it easier for an agency to mandate the use of NZBNs in relation to any service. The Act will be amended accordingly, in part to remove current statutory requirements for privacy consultation and assessments. MBIE advised the Cabinet that such high protection of people’s privacy is now proven unnecessary and a major constraint on NZBN usage.

Since an earlier Cabinet directive, more than 50 government agencies have been integrating the NZBN into their systems and processes in preparation for the broad digital migration now underway.

Business Connect is fast becoming another critical element in the migration. This digital service platform allows businesses and others to apply for registrations, licences and permits, surveys, notifications and other services, from many agencies and all in one place.

FormBuilder.govt is the latest tool to support digitisation of government services. It is a government-facing form building tool, designed for non-technical people to quickly create forms for public usage with all relevant government standards “baked in” and automatic linkage to the NZBN registry.

This has huge potential for reduction in time, effort and frustration. The coming year clearly will be the biggest yet for digital migration in New Zealand government functions and across the whole economy.