Lino and Peppol (eInvoicing)¶

Lino supports receiving and sending digital invoices via the Peppol network as required by companies in Belgium from January 2026.

See ibanity : Peppol access via Ibanity for developer documentation about how Lino implements Peppol support.

Note

Code snippets in this document (lines starting with >>>) get tested as part of our development workflow. The following initialization snippet tells you which demo project is being used.

>>> from lino_book.projects.cosi1.startup import *

Generating Peppol XML files ¶

Lino has two database models that represent a Peppol document: VatProductInvoice and VatAccountInvoice. The former is usually used for sales and the latter for purchase.

>>> for m in rt.models_by_base(jinja.XMLMaker):
...     if m.xml_file_template:
...         print(full_model_name(m), m.xml_file_template, m.xml_validator_file)
...
trading.VatProductInvoice vat/peppol-ubl.xml .../lino_xl/lib/vat/XSD/PEPPOL-EN16931-UBL.sch
vat.VatAccountInvoice vat/peppol-ubl.xml .../lino_xl/lib/vat/XSD/PEPPOL-EN16931-UBL.sch

In order to create the XML of a Peppol document, Lino simply parses the vat/peppol-ubl.xml template.

Lino currrently does not validate Peppol documents. See Schematron validation.

You can manually validate the generated XML file for example on ecosio.org.

Peppol code lists ¶

The following sections explain a few things about Peppol in my words.

document type¶

One of the codes listed here.

transport profile¶

One of the codes listed here. Actually there is only one active transport profile, named AS4.

participant identifier scheme¶

A recognized official registry of identification codes.

One of the codes listed here.

Synonym for EAS?

EAS¶

Electronic Address Scheme

One of the codes listed here.

Synonym for participant identifier scheme?

Some examples of EAS codes:

9925 : Belgium VAT number
0208 : Belgium Company number
9931 : Estonian Company number

It seems that EAS 9925 is a subset of EAS 0208: every party subject to VAT in Belgium also as a company number, which is the same as its VAT number. Hence normal companies should be in both registers, while companies like insurances and some non-profit organizations (who are not subject to VAT and hence have no VAT number) will be only in EAS 0208.

The parties of an invoice ¶

Seller : the partner who sells. Also called supplier, provider. See cac:AccountingSupplierParty
Buyer : the partner who buys. Also called invoicee, recipient, customer. See cac:AccountingCustomerParty
Payee : the partner who receives the payment. Shall be used when the Payee is different from the Seller. We currently don’t use this element <cac:PayeeParty>.
Tax representative : <cac:TaxRepresentativeParty> : not mandatory and we don’t know what it is used for.

Both the seller and the buyer of an invoice contain a single mandatory element cac:Party, which contains a mandatory element cbc:EndpointID, which identifies the party’s electronic address.

This EndpointID element contains the identification number as a textual value, and must have an attribute schemeID, which refers to the EAS code to use when looking up the identification number.

The VAT category ¶

The <cac:ClassifiedTaxCategory> element contains “a group of business terms providing information about the VAT applicable for the goods and services invoiced on the invoice or the invoice line.”

<cbc:ID> : The VAT category code for the invoiced item.
<cbc:Percent> : The applied VAT rate. A number, potentially with decimal positions
<cac:TaxScheme> : a mysterious but mandatory element. According to our references it must contain exactly one child element <cbc:ID>VAT</cbc:ID>, where the word “VAT” seems to mean that the seller is identified using their VAT identifier. We don’t know whether it may contain other values.

A good introduction into why we have all these categories and rates is here: VAT Rates in Europe 2024

VAT category¶

An alphabetic code defined as part of Peppol in the UNCL5305 code list

This list specifies the allowed VAT categories:

AE	Vat Reverse Charge	VAT is levied from the buyer.
E	Exempt from Tax	Taxes are not applicable.
S	Standard rate	The standard rate is applicable.
Z	Zero rated goods	The goods are at a zero rate.
H	Higher rate	A higher rate of duty or tax or fee is applicable.
AA	Lower rate	Tax rate is lower than standard rate.

For any given voucher item, Lino can say which of above codes to apply¶

by interpreting the VAT rule. This mapping is done in¶

VatItemBase.get_peppol_vat_category().¶

Amounts ¶

Vocabulary:

Line net amount: Invoiced quantity * Unit Gross Price
Allowances : discount or similar amount to subtract from the net amount
Charges : some fee, tax (other than VAT) or similar amount to add to the net amount
Line extension amount : Net amount + Charges - Allowances.

An invoice must have exactly one cac:LegalMonetaryTotal element, which provides the monetary totals for the invoice. It can have the following children (each child at most once):

cbc:LineExtensionAmount: Sum of all invoice line amounts in the invoice, net of tax and settlement discounts, but inclusive of any applicable rounding amount.
cbc:TaxExclusiveAmount: total amount of the invoice without VAT.
cbc:TaxInclusiveAmount: total amount of the invoice with VAT.
cbc:AllowanceTotalAmount
cbc:ChargeTotalAmount: Sum of all charges in the invoice.
cbc:PrepaidAmount: Sum of amounts that have been paid in advance.
cbc:PayableRoundingAmount Amount to be added to the invoice total to round the amount to be paid.
‘cbc:PayableAmount <https://docs.peppol.eu/poacc/billing/3.0/syntax/ubl-invoice/cac-LegalMonetaryTotal/cbc-PayableAmount/>`__: outstanding amount that is requested to be paid

Amounts must be rounded to maximum 2 decimals. Each amount element has a mandatory attribute currencyID.

Sources of information ¶

ec.europa.eu (European Commission):

peppol.eu (Copyright OpenPeppol AISBL):

OpenPeppol eDEC Specifications lists the specifications of the Peppol eDelivery network.

peppol.org (Copyright OpenPeppol AISBL):

https://peppol.org/documentation/technical-documentation/edelivery-documentation/

other:

My own blog entries:

Peppol jargon ¶

Here are some Peppol-related terms and abbreviations and what they mean.

Peppol¶

An international standard for exchanging structured electronic invoices and other business documents.

https://docs.peppol.eu/poacc/billing/3.0/

Peppol document¶

A business document that can be exchanged via the Peppol network. Right now this means an invoice or credit note, either sales or purchase.

Lino and Peppol (eInvoicing)¶

Generating Peppol XML files¶

Peppol code lists¶

The parties of an invoice¶

The VAT category¶

Amounts¶

Sources of information¶

Peppol jargon¶

Generating Peppol XML files ¶

Peppol code lists ¶

The parties of an invoice ¶

The VAT category ¶

Amounts ¶

Sources of information ¶

Peppol jargon ¶