The Peppol era is approaching fast. But what exactly is Peppol, when should you use it, what do you have to do for it? Lots of questions that we won’t leave unanswered. In this article, we will make you familiar with Peppol.
What is Peppol?
Peppol is short for Pan-European Public Procurement Online and is a secure, closed network through which digital documents such as invoices can be sent.
Despite having the word European in its name, Peppol has become an international network that includes countries outside Europe.
Why send invoices using Peppol?
As of 1 January 2026, it will be mandatory in Belgium to send invoices to VAT-registered Belgian customers via Peppol. From then on, it will no longer be allowed to send paper or e-mail invoices to your customers.
Invoices for Belgian government, Flemish government, local government, Police, hospitals, … must already be sent via Peppol (Mercurius access point) as of 1/3/2024. It concerns all public contracts above 3000 EUR. Some governments already require it from 0.01 EUR.
Another advantage of Peppol is that you can be sure that the invoice has been sent on to your customer. The invoice no longer ends up in the mail’s spam folder or gets lost in the mail.
What is a Peppol Access Point?
A Peppol Access Point acts as a gateway to the Peppol network. Through the Peppol network, invoices can be sent securely from one Access Point to another.
To receive invoices via Peppol, a company must be registered on Peppol. Keep in mind that you can only receive your invoices via one Access Point.
For sending invoices, you do not need to be registered on Peppol and you can send invoices via any Access Point. In other words, if you have several invoicing programmes, each programme can use its own Access Point to send invoices. So it is also possible to send invoices via an Access Point even if you yourself are not yet registered on Peppol.
You should approach this like how e-mail works. The e-mail you receive arrives at one party like gmail, outlook, telenet…, but you can send e-mails through different parties and they will be delivered where the e-mail address is registered.
Many accounting programmes or pre-accounting systems register their customer on the Peppol network so they can receive purchase invoices. If you want to change accounting programme then you are going to have to ask your previous accounting programme to deregister you there so that the new accounting programme can register you on the Peppol network. This is only for invoices you wish to receive. This should not be done for invoices you send through the Peppol network.
In Belgium, companies are registered with a particular Peppol Access Point through their company number and possibly VAT number.
4-corner model
You regularly hear people talk that Peppol is a 4-corner model. This term comes from the 4 parties involved in it:
- Corner 1: The party sending the invoice.
- Corner 2: The access point to which the sending party sends the invoice and which will forward the invoice to the other party’s access point
- Corner 3: The access point of the counterparty
- Corner 4: The recipient of the invoice
5-corner model (CTC model)
We refer to 5-corner model or a Continuous Transaction Controls (CTC) model when the 5th party is the government. Here the interaction with the government can be in different ways:
- Each document is validated by the government that puts a unique identifier on the document before it is sent to the recipient
- A copy of the invoice is sent to the government
- Access Point has to do reporting to the government
- …
How does Peppol work?
If you want to send a document via Peppol to a counterparty, the sending Access Point needs to be able to know where this document should be sent to. For this purpose, the Peppol network uses an SML and SMP. Once it is known to whom it should be sent, the sending Access Point will send the document directly to the receiving Access Point via the Internet. The AS4 protocol is used for this.
What is an SML?
The SML (Service Metadata Locator) records who more information can be found about a particular identification. The SML is the only central component in the Peppol network.
For the technical people. This is done by converting the identification of the company to a name and this name is registered with the SML as a CNAME record. For example, in Belgium, the company number is used as identification on the Peppol network. To indicate on Peppol than an identification is a company number, the value 0208 is used. Scrada’s enterprise number is 0793904121. So Scrada’s Peppol identifier is 0208:0793904121. This is converted to the name B-a8805fe5b6a0b9fbdcff4c7912aaa140. At the production SML, there is a DNS CNAME record defined B-a8805fe5b6a0b9fbdcff4c7912aaa140.iso6523-actorid-upis.edelivery.tech.ec.europa.eu that points to the party where more information about identification 0208:0793904121 can be found.
What is an SMP?
The party where more information can be found such as information about the company, what type of documents can be delivered, to which party these documents should be sent, … The party where this is registered is the SMP (Service Metadata Publisher). There are many SMPs on the Peppol network.
How to register on Peppol?
When you register as a company on Peppol, you are registered with an SMP. This one will in turn register with the SML where information of this company can be found. So this means that if you wish to go to another party you therefore have to ask the old SMP to deregister you and only then can you register with another SMP. Scrada, besides being an Access Point, is also an SMP where you can register as a company.
How does sending invoices via Peppol work?
If you have multiple invoicing programmes, each invoicing programme can use its own Access Point to send invoices to your customers.
How does receiving invoices via Peppol work?
It is only possible to receive your purchase invoices through one Access Point. If you want to forward the purchase invoice to several programmes or to several places, you can, among other things, use a party such as Scrada where it is possible to have the received purchase invoice sent to, for example, both your own programme and your accounting programme.
Why is it convenient to have your own Peppol Access Point?
The advantage of being an Access Point yourself is that you don’t have to pay any fees to a third party and you can control everything yourself.
At Peppol, they often make the comparison with how e-mail works. This can also be applied here. Why not be an e-mail provider yourself?
Why is it not convenient to have your own Peppol Access Point?
If you wish to be your own Peppol Access Point, you need to do the following things:
- Be a member of OpenPeppol, which is not free of charge.
- Depending on which countries you operate in, you also need to comply with certain guidelines, such as having a certain ISO standard, but sometimes you also need to send additional data to governments.
- You need to create or buy/rent the software to be an Access Point.
- Software also needs to be maintained.
- You need infrastructure to run this.
- …
As you can see, you need to comply with many things to be an Access Point, which only becomes profitable if you have enough customers and people.
What is PEPPOL BIS V3 en EN16931?
EN 16931 is the European standard that defines a standard invoice (eInvoicing standard). It includes what data the invoice must contain. Just like a paper invoice, it also defines that it should contain a date, total amount including VAT, … This standard does not define the syntax of the electronic invoice. There are currently 2 syntaxes that comply with this standard. Namely UBL (Universal Business Language) and UN/CEFACT CII (UN/CEFACT Cross Industry Invoice).
UBL stands for Universal Business Language and is an XML file for electronic invoicing. It is used by the PEPPOL network, among others, to send invoices but can also be used as an attachment to an e-mail. A computer can very easily read a UBL file and use it to make entries in an accounting programme. No OCR or interpretation of a PDF document is needed anymore. Every Belgian accounting program can read UBL files.
PEPPOL BIS is the specification used to send invoices via the PEPPOL network. PEPPOL BIS complies with EN 16931 and uses UBL. The V3 represents the version being used. In the future, V3 will be replaced by V4 and so there will be a PEPPOL BIS V4 to be used, …
Why choose Scrada as a Peppol Certified Access Point?
- We are certified by Peppol to post and receive documents on the Peppol network
- We comply with strict standards and quality criteria
- Thanks to our API, our software integrates effortlessly with yours
- Possible to also track everything via the portal
- Received/sent invoices remain visible for 45 days, with the option to keep them for 10 years as well
- Receive notifications via webhook, API or e-mail
- In addition to API, you can also communicate with our Access Point via e-mail
Our team of experts is ready to help you with the integration. Contact us for questions or additional information.
Using Scrada API?
Get in touch with us. You can test the API for free, we will provide you with the necessary documentation.
