How does PEPPOL Work?

PEPPOL stands for pan-European public procurement online. PEPPOL enables businesses across Europe to send transactional data to their business partners over the PEPPOL network. PEPPOL is broadly similar to the danish Nemhandel, but it covers the entire Eu and several non-European countries. Now just by using this single EDI standard, your company can exchange invoices and some other business documents with the public present across Europe. To know how it works, you must know that what is PEPPOL? If you trade with the public sector in Europe, then PEPPOL should have your attention. All the public authorities and institutions, especially in Europe, must receive the electronic invoices in the PEPPOL standard.

What is PEPPOL?

PEPPOL is a common type of framework for the secure cross-border exchange of electronic business documents. This framework’s original purpose in 2002 was to make trade easier between the European government.

Nowadays, it has evolved far beyond the original intention, with the overall objective now being to use the simple and safe document exchange between the public and private entities worldwide. Now the 31 countries of Europe are using PEPPOL, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, and the United States use PEPPOL.

PEPPOL is the Great Potential:

the potential for the PEPPOL is great also for the communication between the private companies. The more companies that adopt the standard, the more PEPPOL will also become the EDI standard used to exchange the document between the private parties. The PEPPOL does not just include the invoices but also orders, shipping documents, electronic product catalogs, and other types of business documents. That is why the PEPPOL is growing fast not only in Europe but also in some other countries that include Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand have joined the PEPPOL track.

How Does PEPPOL Work?

For your company to exchange documents by the PEPPOL, you must have access to a so-called PEPPOL access point. A PEPPOL access point provides you access to the entire PEPPOL network by allowing you to exchange the documents with all the organizations and companies around the world affiliated with an access point. You can easily choose the PEPPOL access point.

One of the unique things about the PEPPOL is that your EDI solution does not need to know which PEPPOL access points or which systems your customers and suppliers are using, just as they do not need to know yours.

Therefore, your company will still need an EDI solution to exchange the documents in the different EDI standards. But the PEPPOL standard itself offers much more options than you have if you only use the traditional EDI standards. Using the PEPPOL, you will have a secure method of sending and receiving documents to the public sector across Europe.

Gaining access to the International Network:

Using this network, you can gain access to an international network that is also used outside the EU. You can avoid having the exchange which occurs on your electronic documents through traditional VANS networks, which often entails unnecessary costs. Now the PEPPOL standards are in use inside and outside of Europe.

If you are not part of the network, keep in mind that you are putting yourself at a significant disadvantage. For example, one of an Austrian government agency has ordered some of the new computers. The vendor submits the invoice to its chosen access point. In turn, the access point converts the document according to the PEPPOL specification. This access point translates the document for its client. By doing so, the Austrian government agency and the computer vendor can choose their access points not to use the same provider.