Everything You Need to Know about Peppol

This is Michał Kacperek. I’m Business Solutions Consultant at Comarch. Today, I want to talk with you about PEPPOL, which is pretty important from the point of view of data exchange and document exchange.

What is PEPPOL?

PEPPOL is a network that allows you to exchange document with your business partners in a safe, paperless, electronic and efficient way. PEPPOL stands for Pan-European Public Procurement On-Line and PEPPOL has its origin in the European Union. The initial idea was to allow European businesses to exchange invoices with public entities within the European Union in a paperless, and electronic, and safe, and efficient way. So, this is how it started.

PEPPOL in B2G & B2B

It turned out PEPPOL is pretty efficient, so the Europeans asked themselves: “Why don’t we let business in the European Union to exchange also other document types, not only the B2B, sorry not only the B2G, but also in the B2B dimension?”. And it happened. Now, you can use PEPPOL in both the B2B and B2G dimension.

What is even more interesting, PEPPOL turned out to be so successful that even countries outside of Europe started to use it, such as Canada or the US, or Singapore, or New Zealand. So, now we use PEPPOL for B2B, B2G exchange for e-invoices, orders, order responses, and so on.

The importance of PEPPOL

Since April 2020, all European public entities are obliged to be able to receive and handle electronic invoices sent via PEPPOL. This is important because now you don’t have to deal with different countries’ specific criteria, different countries’ specific requirements for forms and so on. Now, you have one set of rules for everyone – which makes the whole thing easier.

How does PEPPOL work?

To be able to answer this question, you need to know what is the so-called “PEPPOL Access Point”. The so-called “PEPPOL Access Point” is a service or it’s a service provider that allows you to exchange documents via PEPPOL. And your “PEPPOL Access Point”, such as Comarch, makes sure your documents meet all PEPPOL requirements and criteria, and your “PEPPOL Access Point” makes sure your documents reach your business partners.

PEPPOL works in a similar way to telecom providers. If you want to call someone, you just dial the number, and then your telecom provider is getting in touch with the telecom provider of the one you want to call, and this is how the call is arranged. A similar mechanism works in PEPPOL.

If you ask yourself “is Comarch able to be your certified PEPPOL Access Point, making sure all the documents meet all the criteria, and that your documents reach your business partners?” , the answer is – yes, of course.

If you want to know more about PEPPOL, please contact me at michal.kacperek@comarch.com