What is Peppol?
Peppol is an international network and set of standards for exchanging e-invoices and other business documents, where each party connects through any accredited service provider.
In more detail
OpenPeppol, a non-profit association under Belgian law, governs the network. Peppol began in 2008 as a pilot financed by the European Commission. It uses a four-corner model: a supplier sends through its own provider, which hands the document to the buyer's provider, which delivers it to the buyer. Both sides can use different providers. Because everyone shares the same formats and addressing, a supplier can reach any registered buyer with one connection. Some governments use Peppol for public procurement, and requirements differ by country, so check local rules. For automation, an inbound Peppol invoice arrives as clean structured data, so extraction becomes a mapping job and matching can start straight away.
Example
A UK subcontractor connects once through an accredited provider and can then invoice any customer registered on the network. The customer's AP system receives the invoice as data and matches it to the PO.