Comprehensive definitions of e-invoicing terms, Peppol concepts, and electronic document exchange terminology.
This is the most comprehensive open glossary of e-invoicing, Peppol, UBL, AS4 and continuous transaction control (CTC) terminology online. Every entry is curated by GoRoute.ai — a Peppol Certified Access Point and SMP provider (POP000991) operated by ClayDesk LLC. The glossary covers OpenPeppol specifications, the EN 16931 European standard, UBL 2.1, EU eInvoicing Building Block, the upcoming VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) regime, and country mandates from Saudi Arabia (ZATCA) to Malaysia (MyInvois) and Poland (KSeF). Use the search bar above or the alphabet jump-list to find any term instantly.
A Peppol-certified service provider that connects businesses to the Peppol network using the AS4 protocol to send and receive structured documents (invoices, credit notes, orders, despatch advices). Every Peppol participant must use a sending AP and a receiving AP. See GoRoute's hosted Peppol AP.
Long-term, tamper-evident storage of issued and received e-invoices to satisfy national tax-audit and accounting laws. Retention varies: 5 years (SG), 6 (BE), 7 (NL/UK/AU), 8 (ES), 10 (FR/DE/IT/SA/PL).
An OASIS ebMS 3.0 messaging profile over HTTPS, mandated by Peppol for transport. Provides confidentiality, integrity, signed receipts and non-repudiation between Access Points.
An immutable, time-stamped sequence of state changes for every document (created, validated, transmitted, MDN received, status response, paid). Required for tax inspections under most CTC and ViDA regimes.
Commercial document exchange between two private legal entities. The fastest-growing segment of mandatory e-invoicing: Belgium (Jan 2026), Germany (2025–2028), France (2026–2027), Poland KSeF (2026), ViDA cross-border (2030).
Sales by private suppliers to public-sector buyers. Under EU Directive 2014/55/EU all EU contracting authorities must accept EN 16931-compliant invoices.
Sales to individuals. Generally outside Peppol scope; some CTC regimes (Italy SDI, KSA ZATCA simplified invoice) still require structured reporting.
An OpenPeppol specification covering an entire business process — syntax, semantics, validation, transport profile. Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 is the current invoice + credit-note BIS, restricted to EN 16931 on UBL 2.1.
A free-text identifier the buyer uses to route the invoice internally (cost-centre, contract, Leitweg-ID for German B2G). Mandatory under EN 16931 if the receiver requires it.
An X.509 certificate issued by the Peppol Authority CA. Separate certificates exist for the AP role (signs AS4 messages) and the SMP role (signs SMP responses). G3 is the current generation; G2 expired in 2023.
France’s government B2G e-invoicing platform run by AIFE. From September 2027 it works alongside accredited Plateformes de Dématérialisation Partenaires (PDPs) for B2B mandates.
A national or sectoral profile that restricts EN 16931 (cannot add new fields). Examples: XRechnung (DE), Factur-X (FR), OIOUBL (DK), Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 itself.
A CTC model where the tax authority must register / validate an invoice before it is legally valid. Implemented in Italy (SDI), Saudi Arabia (ZATCA Phase 2), Poland (KSeF), Malaysia (MyInvois), Romania (e-Factura).
A structured document that reverses or adjusts a previously issued invoice. In Peppol BIS 3.0 it is UBL 2.1 CreditNote.
A regulatory regime in which invoice data is transmitted to the tax authority in real or near-real time. Encompasses clearance, real-time reporting and pre-clearance models. Adopted by 80+ countries by 2026.
The Digital Business Networks Alliance — the Peppol-equivalent open exchange framework for the United States, governed by the Business Payments Coalition. Learn more.
A UBL document from supplier to buyer notifying that goods have been shipped. Defined in Peppol BIS Despatch Advice 3.0.
XML Advanced Electronic Signature — used in ZATCA Phase 2 invoices and AS4 message signing. Provides authenticity and non-repudiation under eIDAS.
A Peppol identifier of the form scheme::value declaring the exact document profile a participant accepts (e.g. busdox-docid-qns::urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:Invoice-2::Invoice##urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017#compliant#urn:fdc:peppol.eu:2017:poacc:billing:3.0::2.1).
The ViDA pillar requiring intra-EU B2B invoice data to be reported to national tax authorities within 10 days of issuance, replacing recapitulative statements (EC Sales Lists) from 1 July 2030.
The EU Digital Building Block for secure, standards-based document exchange. Peppol AS4 is its dominant production profile.
Pre-internet standards (EDIFACT, ANSI X12, TRADACOMS) requiring bilateral VAN connections. Increasingly displaced by Peppol/UBL for cross-border trade.
EU Regulation 910/2014 establishing the legal framework for electronic identification, signatures, seals and trust services across the single market. eIDAS 2.0 (2024) introduces the EU Digital Identity Wallet.
A structured, machine-processable invoice (XML or JSON) issued, transmitted and received in a format that allows automated processing without manual re-keying. A PDF or scanned image is NOT an e-invoice under EN 16931.
The European Standard for the semantic data model of an electronic invoice, adopted by CEN and mandated by EU Directive 2014/55/EU. EN 16931-1 defines core elements; EN 16931-3 lists permitted syntaxes (UBL 2.1 and UN/CEFACT CII).
A globally unique address of the form scheme:value (e.g. 0088:1234567890123 for GLN, 0192:991825827 for Norwegian org-no, 9959:OM10000123 for Oman). The SML resolves the scheme to a DNS-discoverable SMP.
A Franco-German hybrid format (PDF/A-3 with embedded EN 16931 UN/CEFACT CII XML) governed by FNFE-MPE. Technically aligned with ZUGFeRD 2.x.
Italy’s mandatory XML invoice format processed through the SDI. Mandatory for B2G since 2014, B2B + B2C since 2019.
Finland’s national XML e-invoice format published by the Finance Finland federation. Co-exists with Peppol BIS Billing 3.0. More on Finvoice.
Extends the four-corner model with a fifth corner — the tax authority — receiving a real-time copy or clearance of every invoice. Used in IT, KSA, PL, MY, RO and proposed under ViDA.
Peppol’s exchange architecture: C1 Sender → C2 Sender’s AP → C3 Receiver’s AP → C4 Receiver. Eliminates bilateral EDI agreements and enables any-to-any reach.
A 13-digit GS1 identifier for legal entities, departments or physical locations. Used as a Peppol participant identifier under scheme 0088.
Consumption tax used in AU, NZ, IN, SG, MY, CA. Equivalent to VAT in concept; structures e-invoicing mandates in those countries.
A FIPS 140-2/3 tamper-resistant device that stores private keys and performs cryptographic operations. Used by Peppol APs, SMPs and ZATCA EGS units to protect signing keys.
A single PDF/A-3 file containing embedded structured XML (e.g. Factur-X, ZUGFeRD). Bridges the gap between human-readable PDFs and machine-readable e-invoices.
The ability of independent systems to exchange documents and act on them automatically with consistent semantics. The foundational goal of Peppol, EN 16931 and ViDA.
A Peppol UBL ApplicationResponse used by the buyer to acknowledge an invoice as received, accepted, conditionally accepted, rejected or in dispute. Codified by Peppol BIS Invoice Response 3.0.
Singapore’s nationwide Peppol-based e-invoicing initiative run by IMDA. Mandatory for newly incorporated companies from 1 May 2025; full B2B rollout by 1 April 2026. Singapore guide.
A unique invoice identifier assigned at clearance time by tax-authority CTC platforms (India GST IRP, KSA ZATCA cryptographic stamp, Egypt ETA UUID).
Japan’s PINT jurisdiction profile (CustomizationID urn:peppol:pint:billing-1@jp-1). Used for the Qualified Invoice System (適格請求書) mandatory since 1 October 2023 and governed by Digital Agency Japan.
Poland’s National e-Invoice System — a centralised clearance platform for B2B invoices. Mandatory in phases from 1 February 2026 (large), 1 April 2026 (others). Poland guide.
Germany’s federal routing identifier for B2G XRechnung invoices (BT-10 Buyer Reference). Required by the federal e-invoicing portal ZRE/OZG-RE.
Malaysia’s Inland Revenue Board, operator of the MyInvois clearance system based on PINT MY.
Synonym for Peppol Invoice Response — the buyer’s structured business-level acknowledgement, distinct from the AS4 transport-level signed receipt.
Malaysia’s LHDN clearance e-invoicing system on the PINT MY profile. Phased rollout from 1 August 2024 (RM100m+) to 1 July 2025 (all). Malaysia guide.
Denmark’s national e-business infrastructure operated by Erhvervsstyrelsen, transporting OIOUBL documents. Largely interoperable with Peppol since 2019.
Cryptographic property preventing a sender or receiver from later denying that a message was sent or received. Provided in Peppol via XAdES-signed AS4 messages and signed receipts.
Denmark’s national UBL-based e-invoice CIUS, transported through NemHandel and now Peppol.
The Brussels-based non-profit that owns the Peppol specifications, runs the SML, certifies APs and SMPs and accredits Peppol Authorities.
UBL Order and OrderResponse documents covered by Peppol BIS Order 3.x. Foundational to procure-to-pay automation alongside DespatchAdvice and Invoice.
Originally Pan-European Public Procurement OnLine — now a global open network for cross-border exchange of e-procurement documents. Governed by OpenPeppol AISBL. Full Peppol guide.
A jurisdictional body accredited by OpenPeppol — e.g. AgID (IT), KoSIT (DE), DGFiP (FR), IMDA (SG), Digital Agency (JP), OTA (OM), ABR (AU), MoF (UAE).
Synonym for Participant Identifier — the scheme:value address that uniquely identifies a Peppol receiver/sender.
A globally reusable invoice specification with optional jurisdictional sub-profiles: PINT AU-NZ, PINT JP, PINT MY, PINT SG, PINT OM, PINT EU. Detected via the CustomizationID urn:peppol:pint:billing-N@JURISDICTION-N.
The Peppol G3 certificate hierarchy: Peppol Root CA → Test/Production CA → AP/SMP end-entity certificates. Used for AS4 signing and SMP response signing.
A regulatory model where invoices are exchanged directly between parties and tax authorities audit afterwards. Default historic EU model; being replaced by CTC and ViDA.
Peppol identifier indicating the business process context, e.g. urn:fdc:peppol.eu:2017:poacc:billing:01:1.0 = Billing 01.
A TLV-encoded QR code carrying VAT-relevant fields (seller, VAT number, timestamp, totals, hash, signature). Mandatory on KSA ZATCA Phase 2 simplified invoices and Egypt ETA receipts.
Highest assurance signature under eIDAS, legally equivalent to a handwritten signature across the EU. Required on Italian and Polish invoices in some flows.
A CTC variant where invoice data is sent to the tax authority within seconds/minutes (Hungary RTIR, Spain SII, ViDA from 2030).
A signed XML acknowledgement returned by the receiving Access Point confirming successful AS4 reception. Provides non-repudiation of receipt.
An OECD standardised XML file for periodic export of accounting data to tax authorities. Mandatory in Portugal, Norway, France, Lithuania, Romania, Poland (JPK).
ISO/IEC 19757-3 rule-based XML validation language. Peppol uses Schematron for EN 16931, BIS, CIUS and PINT business-rule conformance, compiled to XSLT and executed with Saxon-HE.
Italy’s government-operated Exchange System run by Agenzia delle Entrate — the mandatory clearance hub for FatturaPA invoices.
An arrangement (with prior agreement) where the buyer issues the invoice on behalf of the supplier. Common for commission, royalty and platform-economy flows.
Peppol’s DNS-based locator (edelivery.tech.ec.europa.eu for production, acc.edelivery.tech.ec.europa.eu for test) that returns the SMP responsible for a participant identifier.
A certified registry that publishes, per participant, which (DocumentType, Process) pairs are supported and at which Access Point AS4 endpoint they should be delivered. GoRoute SMP-as-a-Service.
A separate Peppol/PINT artefact carrying tax-authority-bound data (e.g. PINT OM urn:peppol:taxdata:om-1) submitted alongside or independently of the buyer-bound invoice.
Two trading parties exchange documents via a single shared service provider. Limited reach compared with Peppol’s open four-corner model.
A government-issued tax identifier (EU VAT number, US EIN, Saudi VAT, Malaysian TIN). Often combined with a Peppol scheme to form a participant identifier.
OASIS Standard UBL 2.1 (also ISO/IEC 19845) — a royalty-free XML library of standard business documents (Invoice, CreditNote, Order, DespatchAdvice, ApplicationResponse, Catalogue…). Default Peppol syntax.
United Nations Cross-Industry Invoice — the alternative XML syntax accepted by EN 16931 and used by Factur-X / ZUGFeRD.
Multi-layered checking: (1) UBL XSD, (2) business-rule totals, (3) eDEC code lists, (4) baseline EN 16931 + Peppol BIS Schematron, (5) jurisdictional CIUS / PINT Schematron. Any error blocks transmission.
A consumption tax levied at each supply-chain stage. Most CTC and e-invoicing mandates exist primarily to close the EU VAT gap (€61 bn in 2021).
EU package adopted March 2025 (Council Directive 2025/516). Pillars: mandatory cross-border B2B e-invoicing on EN 16931 from 1 July 2030, intra-EU Digital Reporting Requirements, single VAT registration, platform-economy deemed-supplier rules.
An HTTP callback fired by an Access Point (e.g. GoRoute) into a customer ERP whenever an invoice is received, validated or its status changes.
W3C standard markup language used for all major e-invoice syntaxes: UBL, UN/CEFACT CII, FatturaPA, Finvoice.
Germany’s mandatory CIUS for federal B2G invoicing, governed by KoSIT. Becomes mandatory for B2B in stages 2025–2028 alongside ZUGFeRD. Germany guide.
W3C schema language defining structure and datatypes of an XML document. Layer 1 of Peppol validation.
XML Transformations — used to compile Schematron rules into executable validators (Saxon-HE 12.4) and to render UBL invoices into human-readable HTML/PDF.
The Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority of Saudi Arabia. Operates the FATOORA clearance platform for Phase 2 (Integration) e-invoicing under XAdES-signed UBL with cryptographic stamps and QR codes. KSA guide.
Germany’s hybrid PDF/A-3 + UN/CEFACT CII XML invoice format published by FeRD. ZUGFeRD 2.x EXTENDED is technically equivalent to Factur-X.
Try a shorter query, an acronym (UBL, AS4, SMP) or browse alphabetically above.
Everything finance, IT and compliance teams ask us before going live on Peppol.
An Access Point (AP) actually transmits documents using AS4 over the Peppol network. A Service Metadata Publisher (SMP) is the address-book registry that tells senders which document types a recipient supports and at which AP URL to deliver them. You always need both — the SMP for lookup, the AP for transport.
UBL is the Universal Business Language, an OASIS / ISO IEC 19845 XML standard. Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 is built on UBL 2.1, restricted to the EN 16931 semantic data model.
EN 16931 is the European Standard for the semantic model of an electronic invoice. EU Directive 2014/55/EU obliges all public-sector buyers to receive invoices that conform to it. The forthcoming ViDA package extends the obligation to cross-border B2B from 1 July 2030.
Classic EDI (EDIFACT, X12) requires a bilateral agreement and proprietary VAN connections for every trading pair. Peppol uses one open four-corner network with one identifier per company, one syntax (UBL), one transport (AS4), and certified service providers, so any participant can reach any other without bespoke onboarding.
A Core Invoice Usage Specification restricts EN 16931 (it cannot add new fields). Examples: XRechnung (DE), Factur-X (FR), OIOUBL (DK), Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 itself.
PINT is OpenPeppol’s globally reusable specification with optional jurisdictional sub-profiles (PINT AU-NZ, JP, MY, SG, OM, EU). Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 is the EU-centric profile based on EN 16931. PINT documents are detected by the CustomizationID urn:peppol:pint:billing-N@JURISDICTION-N.
In a clearance model the tax authority must approve an invoice before it is legal (Italy SDI, KSA ZATCA, Poland KSeF, Malaysia MyInvois). In real-time reporting the invoice is exchanged directly between parties but a copy is sent to the authority within seconds (Hungary RTIR, Spain SII, ViDA from 2030). In post-audit the parties exchange invoices and the authority audits afterwards.
No. EU Directive 2014/55/EU defines an e-invoice as a structured electronic document that can be processed automatically. A PDF or scanned image is NOT an e-invoice — although hybrid formats like Factur-X / ZUGFeRD embed structured XML inside a PDF/A-3.
VAT in the Digital Age is the EU package adopted in March 2025. From 1 July 2030 it makes EN 16931-compliant e-invoicing the default for cross-border intra-EU B2B transactions, introduces 10-day Digital Reporting Requirements, and removes the buyer-consent requirement.
Peppol mandates: Singapore (InvoiceNow), Australia (B2G), New Zealand, Belgium (B2B Jan 2026), Germany (B2B 2025–2028), Japan (Qualified Invoice), Malaysia (MyInvois on PINT MY), Oman (PINT OM). CTC mandates outside Peppol: Italy (SDI), Saudi Arabia (ZATCA), Poland (KSeF 2026), Romania (e-Factura), Hungary (RTIR), Egypt, Mexico (CFDI), Brazil (NF-e), India (e-Invoicing GST). GoRoute supports all of the above.
(1) The sender hashes the receiver’s participant identifier and queries the Peppol SML over DNS. (2) DNS returns the URL of the SMP that owns that participant. (3) The sender fetches the SMP’s ServiceMetadata document. (4) That document lists supported document/process IDs and the receiver Access Point’s AS4 endpoint and X.509 certificate. (5) The sender then transmits the AS4 message there.
It varies: 5 years (Singapore), 6 (Belgium), 7 (Netherlands, UK, Australia), 8 (Spain), 10 (France, Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Poland). Most jurisdictions require tamper-evident, retrievable storage with audit trail.
(1) UBL 2.1 XSD structural validation, (2) business-rule checks on totals and calculations, (3) eDEC code-list validation, (4) baseline Schematron CEN-EN16931-UBL.sch + PEPPOL-EN16931-UBL.sch, (5) jurisdictional PINT or CIUS Schematron (XRechnung, PINT OM, PINT MY…). Any error blocks transmission — only warnings may pass.
Specifications and code lists are published by OpenPeppol at peppol.org and on the OpenPeppol GitHub. UBL 2.1 is at OASIS. EN 16931 is published by CEN. AS4 is on the OASIS ebXML Messaging website. GoRoute documentation mirrors the up-to-date code lists and Schematrons.
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