EU eInvoicing – Peppol

The Full Invoice EU service provides a complete processing of AP and AR invoices in the European standard formats, exchanged through the Peppol network.

In particular:
1

The Full Invoice EU service is fully automated and includes acquisition of original documents, choice of UBL 2.1 (equivalent to Peppol 3.0) as reference standard format, transformation from Pdf to UBL 2.1, conversion from custom format to UBL 2.1, submission of UBL 2.1 documents, reception of UBL 2.1 and CII formats and, upon request, their legal archiving.

2

Pdf invoices are those coming from the user company ERP, which therefore does not need any changes. The Full Invoice EU service automatically generates the UBL 2.1 format thanks to the templates realised by the same service. It is worth noting that the service provides conversion between UBL 2.1 and XML-SDI in both directions.

3

Invoice processing is performed in cloud, then outside the company legacy system which can anyway import the resulting output in custom format. Thus, the Full Invoice EU service operates as an interface between the company legacy system and the outside world.

4

SATA offers the Full Invoice EU service since 2020 and guarantees to its customers timely and correct adaptation to official norm evolution.

Key factors

We love Pdf!

Any ERP system is in condition to issue Pdf invoices, and Full Invoice EU is able to extract all the contents of a Pdf invoice (header, body, references, footer) and use those contents to generate the target electronic format.

In case of native (text) Pdf, the extraction is 100% effective, while in case of scanned (image) Pdf about the 75% of documents are converted without any problems, while the remaining 25% requires some manual corrections.

The Full Invoice EU service is suitable for companies of any size, and is particularly convenient for two reasons:

In the next years, obligation of electronic invoicing at the EU level for B2B and B2C is not foreseen, then the number of eInvoices to exchange in EU formats will be much lower than the number of Italian eInvoices. This clearly discourages user companies to adapt their own ERP systems to manage natively the EU formats. It is much more convenient for them an extraction service applied to Pdf documents ready to use and very easy to interface.

The EU standard formats allow customisation for country/sector called CIUS (Core Invoice Usage Specification). Italy has its own CIUS, Peppol 3.0 is a CIUS of UBL 2.1 (very close to the original), XRechnung is a German CIUS. It is the buyer country that determines the CIUS to apply. The CIUS catalogue and evolution system is still in the initial phase, and the user company can take much advantage from a service keeping all this complexity hidden.

Fast activation!

Setting-up a user company for the Full Invoice EU service requires an average lead time of 48 hours, with a maximum of 72 hours. For Pdf invoices, it is recommended to send in advance a sample of some tens of them, to make the template tuning easier and faster. Whenever a format conversion is needed, the back-office contacts the user company to get the custom format and the related specifications and agree upon the document exchange channel.

It is likely that the official norms on eInvoicing in Europe and in the European countries will continuously evolve in the next years. On the other hand, the user company can decide to change its own ERP system wishing this will not affect its invoicing function.

The Full Invoice EU service introduces a clear decoupling between the company ICT infrastructure and the external agents that issue and receive the company invoices:

1

Whenever the EU norms change, the Full Invoice EU service is timely updated so as to keep fully coping with the official national specifications.

2

Whenever the user company ERP changes, the Full Invoice EU service keeps on sending the issued documents and receiving the supplier documents.

White label solution!

The Full Invoice EU service model is mainly based on intermediaries (VARs), where each intermediary is provided with a dedicated domain, and one or more sub-domains for its own partners if needed. The user companies are registered in those domains and sub-domains and their data are strictly segregated so as to ensure the maximum protection and privacy.

The user interface (GUI) can be customised with logo and colours of each domain or sub-domain, to ensure a good commercial characterisation. Alternatively, the intermediary can decide to use its own web portal, and to that purpose Full Invoice EU offers an application interface based on sFTP or API REST.

Standard set-up of an intermediary takes three working days (max five) from the sale contract subscription.

The pricing model of the Full Invoice EU service is pay-per-use, based on a price function decreasing for each of the user companies of the domain when the volume of yearly exchanged documents increases. It is also possible to buy pre-paid document batches at a discounted price.

FAQ

Buyer identification

Invoices addressed to public or private entities should mandatorily report the Peppol-ID. Original invoices in Pdf should include the Peppol ID in any position of the header or footer, labelling in a clear and steady way that field. Original invoices in XML-SDI must include the Peppol-ID, typically in the “ Riferimento amministrazione” field. Original invoices in custom structured format should include the Peppol ID in a field from where the connector could extract it.

A Peppol-ID is the unique identifier of a physical or legal person willing to exchange documents into the Peppol network. The Peppol-ID is always assigned by a Peppol service provider, and can remain the same when the service provider changes, but it is mandatory to de-register the user company from the previous provider SMP before registering it at the new provider SMP. In case of change it is sufficient to agree upon a ten minutes’ time interval where the two activities take place in the correct sequence.

No, the Peppol-ID is a unique identifier of a legal entity, in fact it is in form of <prefix1: tax code> or <prefix2: country+VATID> where prefix1 and prefix2 depend on the country where the legal entity is established. User companies are registered into the SATA SMP (local address book of the Peppol network) with the VAT ID, whit the exceptions of companies belonging to a VAT group, that are registered with their tax code (codice fiscale).

For EU countries, the VAT ID always exists and should be reported with the country prefix (ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code). For extra-EU countries, if the original invoice is in structured format, the service adopts the rule: Country code + Value, where Country code is ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code and Value is a string with maximum length 28 digits. Instead if the original invoice in in Pdf, the rule adopted for VAT ID is: EXTRAxxxxxx (11 digits) where xxxxxx is a 6-digit string chosen by the company and not necessarily unique.

EU invoices issuing

There are different ways: manual data entered in a web form (for few documents), invoices sent as attachments of emails addressed to a specific PEC address, invoices released in sFTP folders properly synchronised with Full Invoice EU, invocation of the API REST interface provided by the service. AR invoices can be already in Peppol 3.0 format or in a proprietary structured format or in Pdf format.

A specific set-up phase is needed, where the SATA back-office realises the connector that will be applied those original invoices. A preliminary critical step is that the user company provides clear and complete specifications of the required custom format so as to avoid mapping errors to Peppol 3.0 (see X01).

The Full Invoice back-office realises the document layout model (template), that will be applied to extract all the relevant information and create the Peppol 3.0 format. Each template is associated to a VAT ID, and each VAT ID can have more associated templates if the company issues invoices with different layouts. Pdf vector (text, created by virtual printers) enables a 100% correct and complete content extraction, unless the invoices present syntactical or semantic mistakes. Pdf imagine (from scanner or fax) requires a pre-processing via OCR which introduces errors and uncertainty on some fields in the 25% of documents. In such cases the invoices are made available to the user which can make the needed additions and corrections with a proper GUI.

The Full Invoice service sends to the Peppol network only correct documents and to this purpose executes in advance a proper validation of all Peppol 3.0 invoices, by applying syntactical, semantical, logical and algebraic checks. Whenever a document does not pass all the envisaged checks, it is discarded, and a proper notification is sent to the user.

The Peppol 3.0 format includes attachments in encoding base 64. If the original invoice is not in Peppol 3.0 format, the issuer should make available to Full Invoice EU zip files including invoices and attachments with proper naming convention, thus ensuring to distinguish the main document from attachments. Then the service will generate an Peppol 3.0 format with the attachment included. The original PDF is also embedded into the Peppol 3.0 as attachment.

After validation, the Full Invoice EU service sends the eInvoice to SDI through its certified Access Point. No digital signature is envisaged. Per further details please visit https://peppol.agid.gov.it/it/approfondimenti/ordine-elettronico/

There are no notifications similar to those issued by SdI (delivered invoice receipt/undeliverable invoice receipt). It is possible to detect whether the receiver Access Point is not working. As for Peppol order processing (see the Full NSO Peppol service), the buyer can issue an Invoice Response, optional, to inform the seller about invoice acceptance or rejection, in the analogy of what happens for the B2G Italian invoices.

The Full Invoice and Full Invoice EU services are separated, meaning that they are normally user independently. In case the user wants to use both, the user can send the original document to Full Invoice, ensuring that it includes the buyer Peppol-ID, and use a specific connector converting the XML-SdI invoice into Peppol 3.0 invoice, then sending it to Full Invoice EU. The fee per document is the sum of the fee of the two single services.

The Full Invoice EU service provides a monitoring function allowing the user to see the list of all invoices sent to the Peppol network, with the possibility to filter them and show their details. Both the invoice Peppol status and the eArchiving status (if any) are shown.

EU invoices receiving

The Full Invoice EU service captures invoices coming from the Peppol network through its Access Point (or other Access Point managed by SATA). The service dispatches the orders into the single company working areas, extracts the relevant metadata (indexes and immediately after the user can see the orders in its own monitor (see R03) with their attachments, if any. No notifications are foreseen for AR invoices.

It is possible to receive CII invoices through the Access Point, download them from the GUI or get them via sFTP in the original format or in Pdf obtained by applying the CII standard stylesheet.

The Full Invoice EU service provides a monitoring function allowing the user to see the list of received invoices, with the possibility to filter them, order them and show their details. Both the invoice Peppol status and the eArchiving status (if any) are shown. When using both FullInvoice and Full Invoice EU son the same invoices, each service has its own user company interacting with SdI and the Peppol network respectively. Users can be associated to both companies so as to have an integrated view of both services, or to just one company to have distinct views of Italian and foreign flows.

Import/export from/to the ERP

Yes, an extra cost is envisaged (option Gold). It is mandatory to provide the technical specifications to make the SATA back-office in condition to realise the connector to convert from customised format to Peppol 3.0. The channel for exchanging the original documents with the service is sFTP.

Yes, an extra cost is envisaged (option Gold). The user company must provide the technical specifications to make the SATA back-office in condition to realise the connector to convert from Peppol to the customised format. The channel for exchanging the received documents with the service is sFTP.

The Full Invoice EU service considers as standard the XML-SDI format besides those (UBL 2.1 e Edifact/CII) chosen by the EU for EU eInvoicing. Then invoice import/export in such formats is available and, differently from custom formats, does not imply extra costs. Document exchange occurs always via sFTP.

Legal archiving

Legal archiving for EU eInvoices is not mandatory but strongly recommended. The FullInvoice EU service executes it upon request, with and extra fee per document. Legal archiving is in charge of a service provider qualified by AgID, Agenzia dell’Italia Digitale, usually Credemtel.

When they are sent to / received from the Access Point, respectively.

Yes, an extra fee is envisaged. AP invoices can remain buffered until the user company sends a proper XLS file associating the VAT protocol number and date to every single AP invoice. The FullInvoice service is then in condition to enrich the invoice metadata and create the Delivery package including also such information.

No, the archiving cost is included in the service fee, and covers the legal archiving for 10 years as required by the Italian laws.

SATA configures one user for each company at the legal archiving provider platform, which in turn produces and communicates the user credentials (usid, pswd). From that moment, the Full invoice EU service is in charge of preparing and sending to the archiver the Delivery packages, while the user is fully autonomous in accessing the archived document in the archiver platform.

According to the official specifications, every qualified legal archiver should allow the user to access the archived data through a web application for all the legal archiving period.

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