e-invoicing between trading partners from different private and/or public sectors

If your company... 

  • wants to send e-invoices (electronic invoices) to or receive e-invoices from business partners within the same sector 
  • wants to send or receive e-invoices to or from companies from other private sectors than the one to which your company belongs 
  • wants to carry out the entire buying or selling process electronically (e-procurement: in addition to electronic invoicing, tenders are also published or bid for electronically, and electronic catalogues, purchase orders and/or delivery notes are sent and/or received) 

Then you are best off with 

  • Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 standaard as e-invoice 
    ask your software supplier whether the software you use is able to export or import e-invoices according to this standard, possibly after conversion between this standard format and the internal format of your software by a third party (EDI solution provider). 
    A national Belgian guide with best-practice examples for commonly used invoice scenarios is being developed by the Business Expert Group in collaboration with the Belgian Federation of Enterprises. The published guide with all scenarios available can be consulted at https://einvoice.belgium.be/en/article/business-expert-group-overview. Contact our helpdesk in case of questions and/or problems regarding the use of these e-invoice scenarios.
  • Access Point van het Peppol eDelivery Network to send or receive e-invoices from your trading partners 
    ask your software supplier whether it is connected to the Peppol network or is able to send/receive e-invoices via a third party. 
Peppol

Exception FMCG & Food Service sector

However, an exception exists in some situations. 

• does your company belong to the FMCG & Food Service sector? 
• is your company a government supplier? 
• does your company not have any immediate plans to send or receive e-invoices to or from companies from other private sectors than the one to which your company belongs? 

In that case, you can send the “Harmonized Order-to-Cash” (HO2C) INVOIC e-invoice to the government. This is your sector’s e-invoice standard, received, for example, by supermarket chains. 

HO2C