PEPPOL helps your company to e-invoice internationally

PEPPOL is a common abbreviation seen more and more in international financial management and e-invoicing. But what is PEPPOL, and why and how should you use it?

What is PEPPOL?

To keep it simple, PEPPOL, shortened from Pan European Public eProcurement On-Line, is an international communication infrastructure and network to convey electronic documents such as e-invoices. 

Unlike many e-invoicing networks protected with closed source code, PEPPOL is a completely open network enabling both joining the network and sending documents to other networks and connected systems.

PEPPOL started off as a development project by EU, aiming to make public administration acquisitions more fluent in the EU region. Since then PEPPOL has evolved much further than the original thought. Now the aim is to internationally convey electronic documents between both public and private sectors in a simple, safe and cost-effective way.

The name PEPPOL is often used in a misleading way about the format of documents sent through the PEPPOL network. The format is actually called PEPPOL BIS (Business Interoperability Specifications) and it functions both in the PEPPOL network and outside of it.

See the current situation with e-invoicing mandates here. 

Why should you utilize PEPPOL in e-invoicing?

E-invoicing is a crucial part of digitalizing your business. Invoicing is a lot more faster, cost-effective and reliable than for example PDF invoices sent through email. Sending an e-invoice through PEPPOL also leaves an electronic mark which verifies that the invoice has
been delivered successfully. Read our practical e-invoicing guide. 

If a business operates internationally they should ensure the capability of invoicing through PEPPOL – this has now become a standardised and quite extensively used way to convey invoices. Along with public administrations private businesses have also begun to favour e-invoicing, and they end up choosing PEPPOL more and more often.

PEPPOL is becoming a global network in a fast rate, growing continuously both in and outside of Europe. Among other countries Japan has informed that it will be looking into utilizing PEPPOL. Right now PEPPOL is used in over 30 European countries as well as in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa and USA.

Even though PEPPOL is an international and standardised concept, it’s good to remember that some countries might have specific requirements concerning things like information content. However, these will be clarified with the provider of your company’s financial solutions.

How can I put PEPPOL into use?

If your company wants to receive electronic PEPPOL invoices it can sign up to the PEPPOL network, free of charge. This way the invoices can be directed to the right receiver. Your company’s ability to receive PEPPOL invoices is this way also updated to the PEPPOL Directory index.

Signing up is not required when you want to send an e-invoice to a company that is a part of the PEPPOL network. You can see the e-invoice addresses of companies signed up to PEPPOL from the PEPPOL Directory index, which can be found from: https://directory.peppol.eu/public.

As a client of Heeros, getting started with PEPPOL is extremely easy. All you need is to make Heeros a support request to start using PEPPOL. Heeros will do the rest: the PEPPOL capability is activated with a partner to your service entirety, needed PEPPOL info is added to the recipient address, and information content is checked to comply with PEPPOL guide lines.

Ask more about PEPPOL from your own Heeros contact person and start utilizing it as soon as you can!

To tie things up, remember that you can get all the financial management solutions needed by an international company from us, to digitalize your purchase and sales invoices around the world.

Learn about financial management software for international companies.