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Peppol and sending of electronic invoices
What is behind Peppol?
Peppol is a network that can be used to transmit electronic documents from suppliers to public authorities. In the future, every European company should be able to exchange messages with every public sector customer, for example invoices or other business documents. How Peppol works, how you can become a Peppol user and what updates and innovations it includes will be shared in our blog posts.
How does Peppol work?
Peppol is short for Pan-European Public Procurement OnLine. The system, which once emerged from an EU project, enables the reliable and secure exchange of documents between business partners based on a common standard. The best way to explain how Peppol works is to use a model with four corners: The invoicing party (1) sends its invoice indirectly to the invoice recipient (4), using a service provider with a so-called access point (2) as a kind of “intermediate station.” This service provider checks and sends the documents via Peppol to the invoice recipient’s access point (3), which in turn sends it to the invoice recipient (4). This sounds like a detour at first, but it is not. On the contrary, sending via Peppol has many advantages: The processes are automated, the data is encrypted, and you are connected to all partners registered in the Peppol network – across borders.
Why do I have to send invoices via Peppol?
Since November 27, 2020, public purchasers from federal agencies must be able to receive and send electronic invoices. Suppliers and service providers can submit their electronic invoices to the federal administration via two invoice receipt platforms: Either via the Central Invoice Receipt Portal of the ITZBund or the OZG (Onlinezugangsgesetz) of the German Federal Printing Office. Peppol has proven to be an efficient tool in this regard: Around 40% of all invoices submitted to these two invoice receipt platforms were sent via Peppol.
What are the innovations at Peppol?
Since November 27, 2020, public purchasers from federal agencies must be able to receive and send electronic invoices. Suppliers and service providers can submit their electronic invoices to the federal administration via two invoice receipt platforms: Either via the Central Invoice Receipt Portal of the ITZBund or the OZG (Onlinezugangsgesetz) of the German Federal Printing Office. Peppol has proven to be an efficient tool in this regard: Around 40% of all invoices submitted to these two invoice receipt platforms were sent via Peppol.
The advantages of electronic invoicing are obvious: the invoicing process is automated. This not only saves time, but also minimises errors. Costs for printing and mailing are eliminated. Although it is currently only mandatory for federal authorities, the topic of e-invoicing will sooner or later also come to the attention of federal states and municipalities.
Who is involved in Peppol?
Peppol has more than 430 members from different countries worldwide. Besides many European countries, users come from Australia, Singapore or the USA. All information about members and access points and more about Peppol can be found at www.peppol.eu.
Webware offers Invoice solutions and Peppol Access Point
Are you looking for an e-invoicing solution? Our Invoice Portal offers you the possibility to create an electronic invoice and has a Peppol Access Point, which makes it possible to receive or send electronic invoices encrypted via Peppol. We fulfil all legal requirements and send the invoices for you – directly from your mailbox and via your company’s own server.
Do you have any questions about our services? Please feel free to contact us.
New features
Our Invoice Portal is designed to be simple and user-friendly and is constantly being improved. If you don’t have an account yet, you can test our service for two weeks free of charge and see for yourself.
All changes and innovations at a glance
We keep our eInvoice formats always up to date. The current versions are:
- PEPPOL BIS Billing 3.0.10 (release date: 03.05.2021)
- XRechnung 2.0.1 (release date: 16.12.2020)
In the XRechnung input mask you will now find new input fields where you can enter additional references such as order number, project number or accounting reference.
The following components have been updated:
- SFTP and API interfaces: These interfaces guarantee a secure connection when transferring your sensitive data.
- CSV-XML conversion: you can easily convert the information processed in Excel into XML.
- XML viewer: you can view received and sent invoices in PDF format.
The following new features have been added:
- You now have the ability to receive your invoices through the PEPPOL network and view them in readable PDF format.
- Custom SMTP: We can send your invoices in your name and from your mailbox in the future. All you need to do is configure your in-house SMTP server once to send invoices via email.
- Introduction of additional input fields for manual invoice creation
- Extension of the input fields by “credit note”, “partial invoice”, “partial final invoice” and “final invoice”.
If you have any questions, concerns or problems, please do not hesitate to contact our development team. For more information about the changes and updates, please visit https://app.invoice-portal.de/release.
