e-invoicing between trading partners in the FMCG & Food Service sector + from that sector to the government

Your company belongs to the FMCG or Food Service sector and would like to: 

  • send e-invoices (electronic invoices) to or receive e-invoices from business partners within the same sector 
  • send e-invoices to public sector customers 

Then you are best off with 

This e-invoice is part of a set of 3 electronic commercial documents: HO2C e-order form (ORDERS), HO2C e-delivery form (DESADV) and HO2C e-invoice (INVOIC). 

HO2C

Supported invoice and credit note scenarios: 

The HO2C e-invoicing guide contains many scenarios that are only relevant to transactions between trading partners in the FMCG and Food Service industries, but not to e-invoicing to public authorities. 

Nevertheless, all scenarios described are implemented according to the examples given in the guide. This does imply, however, that if pure scenarios are mixed, testing of this new scenario is recommended. * 

Supplement to the guide to e-invoicing to the government:

In this document you will find an overview of the elements that need to be added to the HO2C e-invoice standard in order to be able to invoice public authorities.* 

* If you want to know specifically which EANCOM segments, data elements and codes need to be added, you can contact our helpdesk to receive a sub/superset Message Implementation Guide from HO2C INVOIC for Public Invoicing. 

Roadmap for getting started with e-invoicing to the government:

We assume that your company is already sending and/or receiving HO2C e-invoices from trading partners within the FMCG & Food Service sector. 

  1. Register for GS1 
    Complete the following form to register with GS1 Belgilux. 
    This provides us with an overview of all parties using this system. 
  2. Sample e-invoice check by GS1 
    Prepare a sample EDI file for each invoice/credit note scenario that your company has with the government. Contact your accounting software supplier or EDI solution provider if necessary. 
    The GS1 Belgilux helpdesk will request these files from you and check whether they comply with the HO2C INVOIC e-invoice standard. A sample should contain only one scenario (do not combine different scenarios) and a limited number of lines. 
  3. Setting up a connection between your company network and e-invoicing platform government (Mercurius) by solution providers.
    If the sample invoices/credit notes are in accordance with the HO2C INVOIC e-invoice standard, you will receive a form from GS1 Belgilux. This must be completed and sent to the EDI solution provider that manages the government's e-invoicing platform (Mercurius), namely Babelway. 
    Babelway, together with your own EDI solution provider, then sets up a test and production connection (AS2) between your own company network and the government's e-invoicing platform (Mercurius). 
  4. Test the sending of e-invoices to the government e-invoice platform by government suppliers.
    Once your company network and the government e-invoicing platform (Mercurius) are connected, you must send one or more test e-invoices to the government via the test connection. The government checks whether it is able to import your e-invoices into its accounting software. 
     
  5. E-invoicing to the government by a government supplier 
    After a successful import of your test e-invoices, the government grants you permission to replace your paper invoices with e-invoices and send them via the production connection. 

Exception:

Does your company plan to send or receive e-invoices to or from companies from private sectors other than the one to which your company belongs? 

Then consider using the cross-sector standard e-invoice Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 in addition to the sectoral standard e-invoice HO2 INVOIC. 

Peppol