[Advertorial] From January 1, 2026, the exchange of electronic invoices via the PEPPOL network will be required by law. But other business documents such as order forms and delivery notes can also be sent or received via the same network. So opt for a future-proof PEPPOL Access Point that can support the digitization of your entire business process and thus your financial and logistics supply chain.

Legally required electronic invoicing via the PEPPOL network

Your company’s finance department may be busy since the government passed a law in February that legally requires electronic or digital invoice exchange between companies from January 1, 2026. To be clear, these are not PDF invoices that are only sent and received electronically, but invoices that can also be automatically interpreted and processed by software.

The format of the invoices must comply with the PEPPOL BIS* standard and they must also be exchanged via the PEPPOL network. That is why finance departments (hopefully in consultation with IT) are actively looking for a so-called PEPPOL Access Point. This is a service provider that can connect the financial system (invoicing, accounting or ERP package) in which invoices are created and recorded to the PEPPOL network. If necessary, the PEPPOL Access Point can also translate between the language of the internal software and the standard language to be used in this PEPPOL network.

(*BIS is an abbreviation for Business Interoperability Specification)

Other commercial documents in order-to-cash and procure-to-pay processes

Just as an ERP system is not selected by one department, it makes sense to examine the issue multidisciplinarily when selecting the PEPPOL Access Point. While many parties look at the file from a one-sided financial perspective, it is important to recognize that the electronic invoice is just one document and actually represents the last part of the order-to-cash or procure-to-pay process.

The difference between these two processes is the direction of the supply chain. With Order-to-Cash, you look downstream; your customer initiates the process by sending an order form, and you therefore exchange documents with a party further down the supply chain. With Procure-to-Pay, you look upstream; you are the customer yourself, and therefore send an order form to your supplier. So you exchange documents with a trading partner who is ahead of you in the supply chain.

In these business processes, numerous commercial, logistical and financial documents can be exchanged. There is a PEPPOL BIS standard for all these document types to digitize and automate this. These commercial documents are not only the responsibility of the finance department, but also of the trade and logistics department.

1. catalog with which the seller passes on the product information (master data) to the buyer
2. Catalogue response This allows the buyer to reject or accept the contents of the catalogue
3. commandThis allows the buyer to order products (or services) from the seller
4. Order response(in advance) with which the Seller can confirm the order in whole or in part, reject it or send a proposal for modification (subsequently the Buyer can send a new order or not, see 3)
5. Order change with which the buyer can send a change to his order (after which the seller can send another order confirmation, see 4)
6. Order cancellation with which the buyer can cancel his order
7. Shipping notice with which the seller can digitally inform the buyer about which goods are being delivered before physical delivery
8. The invoice with which the seller can invoice the buyer for the products or services delivered
9. Invoice response This allows the buyer to inform the seller about the status of the invoice during the approval and payment process
10. Credit This allows the seller to send a correction of his invoice to the buyer

There are some other messages for specific purposes that are omitted from this article.

The standards for electronic commercial documents can be found here: Invoice/credit note + other commercial documents.

Other application: Logistics

In addition to the Order-to-Cash and Procure-to-Pay application, which essentially involves the exchange of electronic commercial documents between trading partners (customer-supplier), there is also a PEPPOL incubation project for another application; in particular logistics.

This allows companies to exchange electronic documents with logistics subcontractors who carry out transport and storage activities for them. The first pilot projects are currently running in Scandinavia.

However, it is still in its infancy and is currently limited to documents for transport.

An overview of the existing logistics reports can be found here.

Diploma

PEPPOL is much more than the exchange of electronic invoices, so look at this project from a multidisciplinary perspective, from IT, finance, logistics and trade. Think broadly and long-term.

Choose a future-proof PEPPOL Access Point that can support the digitalization of your entire business process and thus your financial and logistics supply chain.

C&W Logistics – PEPPOL support for the entire supply chain – peppol@cwlogistics.be

This is a commercial contribution from C&W Logistics. The publishers are not responsible for the content.