Ask HN: How are you preparing for PEPPOL?
Couldn't find any previous discussions on PEPPOL on HN. If you're unfamiliar with it, it is an electronic invoicing network, which the EU is starting to force on businesses. All business-to-business invoices in Belgium will have to be sent over PEPPOL as of next year [1]. Gone will be the days of emailing PDFs.
This obviously impacts every business which deals with other businesses. Access to the PEPPOL network is not free. Direct access is nearly impossible (it is expensive and requires technical audits). A variety of third parties are popping up to mediate access. They all seem complex and expensive. Not only will you have to use the network to send your invoices, you will also have to receive them somehow. If you're a small business, this could get pretty complicated pretty quickly.
I'm assuming we have some EU business owners/freelancers/entrepreneurs on HN. How are you preparing for this (apparently inevitable) future of PEPPOL?
[1] https://finance.belgium.be/en/enterprises/vat/e-invoicing/mandatory-use-structured-electronic-invoices-2026
We make a niche B2B software which has an invoicing module and we've had to add EHF[1] support, which is the Norwegian implementation of electronic invoices delivered through PEPPOL.
The gov't in Norway has mandated use of EHF for billing the gov't for about a decade now, which really drove adoption. Our customers has to have an agreement with one of the access points[3], so the cost of sending the EHF goes directly to the customer.
Adding support wasn't terribly hard, but it wasn't trivial either. The XML is fairly straight forward, but when you submit one the access point doesn't just do a schema verification, it also verifies that intermediate values are calculated and rounded correctly for example.
[1]: https://anskaffelser.dev/postaward/g3/spec/current/billing-3...
[2]: https://peppol.org/learn-more/country-profiles/norway/
[3]: https://anskaffelser.no/verktoy/veiledere/aksesspunkter-ehf-...
It doesn’t seem to be EU-mandated? Only Italy and Belgium have it mandatory, according to [0], in other countries it’s only relevant for B2G.
Outside that Wikipedia entry, I have also heard nothing about it becoming required in Germany (we are mainly B2C, but do some B2B and B2G), here we are instead moving forward with X-Rechnung/ZUGFeRD/Factur-X, which is an XML standard that can also be embedded in PDFs, and doesn’t require certification or anything.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEPPOL
Latvia: As of this year it is required in B2G transactions. Next year, mandatory for B2B
And what are the official guidelines? Are you just supposed to find a 3rd party provider and pay whatever they ask? That’s kinda shitty if you ask me.
I can shed some light on this topic. Since I own a SaaS which is focused on freelancers & SME's.
The EU is becoming very regulated when it comes to sending / receiving invoices. Basic invoicing tools that offer PDF are not sufficient anymore.
You could say I'll run my own peppol access point but the economics of doing so for a single person doesn't make sense. You're looking at a basic yearly fee of 2000 euros just for the peppol membership and on top of that you need to get certified by third parties looking at another couple of thousands euros just to be able to send and receive some invoices.
My best advice is to search for an affordable tool that takes away this complexity away for you. I know that previously you could send for free, but that's going to end if you like it or not.
I run my SaaS at https://www.bizzey.com which is a business tool that you can fully customize and peppol sending and receiving is supported (it's also completely "free" in a sense that you just pay the subscription and nothing on top)
Definitely going to be a smart follower on this one. My accountant pretty much convinced me to let others experiment if they want, on our end we have a peppol compatible system, so we'll enable the feature a few days before it becomes mandatory.
Our local accounting app just supports it. And as I understand participating to PEPPOL network is not mandatory - you can still send those electronic invoices via email as far as I understand. But yeah, your accounting software better support PEPPOL.
There's a Stripe app in their marketplace for sending invoices over PEPPOL, I'm sure it'll become a feature once it's mandatory in enough places.
Here in France there's a similar system, I just require a certain tier to accept payments through it.
I’m using bookkeeping software that has already integrated it. It’s just a switch to turn sending invoices via peppol. It’s no extra charge on my paid plan.
I’m assuming all bookkeeping software will integrate it, just as all suppliers are able to send PDF invoices.
For the ones sending invoices manually, like OP, maybe software with free tiers will pop up. Just like many suppliers have free tiers for sending PDF invoices.
I’m using an intermediary saas platform that has a free plan. I don’t like being forced to use an external provider, just for being able to send invoices, but at least it’s not costing me any money (yet).
In Germany peppol will not be mandatory for a very very long time. Most people still sending invoices via mail, even in b2b. Only in 2027 will make electronic invoices (xml format) mandatory, it will probably another 2-5 years until peppol will be necessary.
What’s your reference for the EU forcing this on businesses? The link you provided is only about Belgium.
That’s how EU directives usually work and this one seems to be from 2014. Saying “EU forcing” could as well be replaced with “European governments agreed on a single standard for e-invoicing in b2g and then also started to apply it in b2b”.
The only problem I see is certification requirements instead of just opened an API to where you can beam your signed xml blobs.
As far as I see it, Belgium is the first to mandate it, and the rest of the EU will follow soon after. The European Commission is big on e-invoicing.
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-building-blocks/sites/display/D...
Italy switched to electronic invoicing a few years back. People complained for a while but it turned out to be quite painless in the end.
How did it compare to the PEPPOL costs and implementation requirements ?
I am surprised that you have to pay for sending invoices. Thats not an issue in Germany.
This only seems to cover invoicing the public sector, I don't see anything about B2B there. The dashboard mentions, "15 countries introduced obligations for issuing B2G eInvoices".
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-building-blocks/sites/display/D...
Ah now I see that in the fact sheet for every country they write if the legislation also introduces a B2B mandate.
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-building-blocks/sites/display/D...
So currently there are B2B mandates (some in the future) for: Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Poland(?) and Romania.
Don't know how it relates to PEPPOL, but Finland is pretty much all in on e-invoicing and has been for years. As a consumer, I get e-invoices from my building management, insurance company, the tax administration, my credit card company, my phone operator, my electricity company and even the place I order domestic domains from.
It's really nice though. I can set invoices to be paid automatically when they're under n€ and don't have to do anything to keep up with all of my payments.
Similar experience in Iceland.
Having moved over to the continent last year though, I am now having to deal with an enormous flood of paper.
Frankly if you are a business, having to pay a per year fee plus extra per invoice just so it all can be standardised and reduce the paper flood shouldn't be an issue, as long as the fees are not too great.
It’s really not that complicated or expensive. Broken down for most people it’s gonna work just like email. What’s your grievance besides the general stuff in your post?
It seems pretty complicated to me, but maybe you can point out some resources that make it easy?
My current invoicing system is a simple tool that generates PDFs. I send those to my customers by email (and rarely an angry reminder by post), and I get paid. Good stuff. My suppliers similarly send me PDFs by mail, and some of them send me paper invoices by post. All very simple. I pay them every month, and once every quarter I send those on to my accountant so he can do his thing.
All this sending and receiving has been free so far. But with PEPPOL, I'll suddenly need some third party tool with some kind of paid subscription, to continue to do what I had been doing for free before.
This one https://www.b2brouter.net/global/prices/ allows free sending, but it does not offer reception.
Another poster says its $2k/yr membership fee + auditing to submit invoices in their system.
Even if you "share" a certificate with others, this seems like an unwanted income tax for freelancers or businesses.
1,800 euro annual fee for freelancers:
https://peppol.org/join/fees/
That's something else, thats for directly connecting to Peppol, which few business will do (mostly very large businesses, or financial companies).
Most businesses will use a accounting system anyway, and most of those will support Peppol out-of-the-box. So instead (or in addition) to sending an e-mail, the invoice will be sent directly into their accounting system (and their bank, if they choose).
Really, it simplifies things a lot! No more punching/copying of stuff from PDFs into your online bank. The cost is not really high, just a bit annoying (typically some euros a month + a few euros pr invoice).
(I probably could have found a cheaper provider but I don't send many invoices so it is ok).
Sending an email is free. Paying for accounting software (sharing the license) is not free.
Can you share what the cost is? This [0] provider says each invoice costs $10-30. NET14 means you'd pay $260 - $780/yr!
https://www.valtatech.com/thought-leadership/einvoicing/how-...
A few euros per invoice? That seems pretty expensive. More expensive than the postal service.
On the upside, PEPPOL guarantees delivery if you successfully submit a message. So the recipient can't claim they didn't get the invoice if you managed to deliver.
Romania has a similar system for some time. The over regulation in EU is bad, but still better then a grifter president, that uses a shit coin to scam the people.