Financica supports structured electronic invoicing through the UBL (Universal Business Language) standard, Factur-X / ZUGFeRD hybrid PDFs, and the Peppol network. This allows you to exchange invoices with other businesses electronically, without manual data entry.
Electronic invoicing is included on the self-serve plans at no extra charge. Solo includes 80 invoices per month (OCR uploads and e-invoices, sent and received combined); Core and Scale include free unlimited e-invoices.
What is UBL?
UBL is an XML-based standard for business documents, including invoices. Unlike a PDF, a UBL invoice is machine-readable — all the data (line items, amounts, VAT, parties) is structured in a way that software can process directly.
Benefits of UBL invoices:
- No OCR needed — The figures are read from the file itself, exactly as the sender wrote them, instead of being recognized off a picture of a page.
- Faster processing — Invoices can be imported and categorized in seconds.
What is Peppol?
Peppol is a European network for exchanging electronic business documents. Think of it as an email network, but specifically for invoices and other business documents. When both parties are registered on Peppol, invoices can be transmitted directly between their systems.
Registering on Peppol
To send and receive invoices over Peppol, your company needs to be registered on the network. You can do this from Settings > Organization > General in the Peppol e-invoicing section.
Prerequisites
Before registering, make sure you have entered your company number or VAT number in the Company details section of the same page. Financica uses these to generate your Peppol identifiers (e.g. 0208:0766280697 for a Belgian company number, 9925:BE0766280697 for a Belgian VAT number).
Checking your status
If you are not sure whether your company is already registered on Peppol (for example, through a previous accounting tool), click Check status. Financica will look up your identifiers on the Peppol network and tell you:
- Not registered -- Your identifiers are available. You can register directly.
- Registered at another provider -- Your identifiers are already registered with a different Peppol access point. See "Migrating from another provider" below.
- Registered -- Your identifiers are registered through Financica. You are ready to send and receive.
You can refresh this check at any time using the refresh button in the top-right corner of the Peppol section.
Registering
Click Register on Peppol to register your identifiers. Financica registers both your company number and VAT number identifiers on the network. Once registered, your identifiers are shown in the Peppol section and you can start sending and receiving electronic invoices.
Migrating from another provider
If your identifiers are already registered at another Peppol access point, you have two options: deregister at your current provider and then register here, or, if that provider issues Peppol migration keys, hand the registration over directly with no gap in delivery. Most providers support the first; not all support the second.
Moving your Peppol registration to Financica walks through both, step by step.
Deregistering
If you are registered through Financica and want to deregister (for example, to move to a different provider), click Deregister from Peppol in the Peppol section. You will be asked to confirm before the deregistration takes effect. You can re-register at any time.
Credit notes
Financica supports Peppol credit notes in both directions:
- Receiving -- Incoming Peppol credit notes are imported and processed automatically, just like invoices.
- Sending -- When you issue a credit note against a revenue invoice, you can register and transmit it over the Peppol network. The credit note appears in the EDI audit log with its own delivery status.
Message Level Response (MLR)
When you send an invoice or credit note over Peppol, the recipient's system may return a Message Level Response confirming whether the document was accepted or rejected. Financica tracks MLR status on the invoice detail page alongside the delivery confirmation, giving you end-to-end visibility into the document exchange.
Downloading the sent UBL document
When an invoice is sent over Peppol, Financica archives the UBL XML document exactly as it was delivered to the network. You can download it at any time from the Download menu at the top of the invoice page, where it appears as a peppol-*.xml entry alongside the invoice's other files. This is the structured document your recipient received, useful for record-keeping, disputes, or verification by your accountant.
Receiving Peppol documents by email
By default, Financica forwards each incoming Peppol invoice or credit note to your billing email address with any PDF attachments and the UBL XML file included. The document is still imported and processed in Financica as usual -- the email is a copy for your team's convenience.
To configure this:
- Set a Billing email in Settings > Organization > General (under Company details). This is the address that receives forwarded documents.
- The Receive Peppol documents by email checkbox in the Peppol section controls whether forwarding is active. It is enabled by default.
If you do not want email copies of incoming Peppol documents, uncheck the option.
Receiving UBL invoices
When you upload an XML file to a transaction or through the expenses section, Financica automatically detects if it is a UBL invoice:
- The XML file is parsed for UBL content.
- If recognized, an invoice record is created automatically with all extracted data.
- The original file is stored as a document attachment.
- You receive a notification confirming the import.
If the UBL document matches an existing invoice (based on invoice number and supplier), Financica will link to the existing record rather than creating a duplicate.
Receiving Factur-X / ZUGFeRD invoices
Factur-X (called ZUGFeRD in Germany) is a hybrid PDF format: a regular human-readable invoice PDF with the structured invoice data embedded inside as XML. This is widely used in France and Germany and is becoming the default for cross-border e-invoicing.
When you upload a Factur-X or ZUGFeRD PDF, Financica detects the embedded XML automatically and parses it the same way as a UBL invoice -- with no OCR involved. The figures come straight from the structured data the sender put in the file, but the PDF stays visually intact so a human can still read it.
Every Factur-X / ZUGFeRD profile is read: MINIMUM, BASIC WITHOUT LINES (BASIC WL), BASIC, EN 16931 (COMFORT), EXTENDED, and the German XRechnung variant. The profile is not what decides whether the file can be used -- the content is. Financica falls back to OCR when the PDF carries no recognized invoice XML at all, or when the XML it carries is missing the essentials: an invoice number, an issue date, or a currency.
Sending electronic invoices
When sending a revenue invoice, you have two delivery options:
- Peppol -- If your customer is registered on the Peppol network, you can send the invoice directly over Peppol. The invoice detail page shows EDI audit logs and delivery confirmations so you know when the recipient's system acknowledged receipt.
- Email -- You can also send the invoice to your customer's email address with the PDF attached. To use this, the customer record needs an email address. The option appears as a checkbox when sending the invoice.
Compliance
E-invoicing obligations differ from one country to the next. What follows is the state of play in the countries Financica supports, and what each of them asks of you.
In all of them, the work on your side is the same: enter your company and VAT number, register on Peppol from Settings > Organization > General, and issue your invoices from Financica. Financica handles the transport, the structured format, and the archiving of the document as it was sent or received.
Belgium
Structured e-invoicing between VAT-registered Belgian businesses has been mandatory since 1 January 2026. This is not an upcoming change: if you invoice other Belgian businesses, you are already required to send those invoices as structured e-invoices rather than as a PDF. Invoicing to public bodies (B2G) was mandatory before that and remains so.
Both obligations run over Peppol in Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 format, so a single registration covers them. Belgian records must be kept for seven years.
The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden and Norway
Financica is live on Peppol in these four countries. Registration works exactly as in Belgium, but the obligations differ:
- The Netherlands -- Sending e-invoices to public bodies is mandatory (central government since 2017, all other public bodies able to receive since 2019). There is no B2B mandate. A government advisory report recommends introducing one built on Peppol, but nothing has been enacted, so B2B e-invoicing remains voluntary for now.
- Luxembourg -- B2G e-invoicing is mandatory for every supplier, small ones included, since 18 March 2023. For B2B, a draft bill approved by the government on 17 July 2026 would require all Luxembourg businesses to receive e-invoices from 1 January 2028, large and medium enterprises to issue them from 1 July 2028, and all remaining businesses from 1 January 2029. Parliament has not passed it yet, so treat those dates as planned rather than settled.
- Sweden -- B2G e-invoicing over Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 has been mandatory since 1 April 2019. No B2B mandate has been decided. A government inquiry into one is due to report by 30 November 2027.
- Norway -- B2G e-invoicing has been mandatory since 2019. A bill before parliament would require bookkeeping-obligated businesses to issue B2B e-invoices from 1 January 2027, and to receive them, with an electronic accounting system, from 1 January 2030. Businesses under NOK 50,000 of turnover with no accounting or VAT obligation would be exempt. The bill has not passed yet.
Denmark and Finland
You can register on Peppol as a Danish or Finnish organization, and registration works exactly as in Belgium. In both countries, part of the market is reached over a domestic network rather than Peppol, so confirm with a counterparty that they can receive over Peppol before relying on it.
- Denmark -- B2G e-invoicing has been mandatory since 2005, and runs over the national NemHandel network as well as over Peppol. The Digital Bookkeeping Act, phased in between 2024 and 2026, requires bookkeeping systems to be able to send and receive structured e-invoices; it is not a general obligation to invoice other businesses electronically. The Danish OIOUBL format is set to be replaced in the coming years, but the successor format does not exist yet and none of the migration dates are law.
- Finland -- Public bodies have had to receive EN 16931 e-invoices since 2019 (central government) and 2021 (all others). There is no general B2B mandate, but any buyer with more than EUR 10,000 of turnover has a legal right to demand a structured e-invoice from you, and you have to comply. Much of the Finnish market is reached over operator and bank networks (Finvoice) rather than over Peppol.
France
France is the exception: it does not use Peppol. French invoices are exchanged and reported through certified private platforms (Plateforme Agréée), and Financica connects to France through Qonto, which is one. There is no Peppol registration to do for a French entity.
The French dates are firm and close:
- 1 September 2026 -- every French business must be able to receive e-invoices, and large and mid-size companies must issue them.
- 1 September 2027 -- small and micro-enterprises must issue them too.
French support is not available yet. The Qonto integration that connects Financica to the French network runs in our development and demo environments only; there is no Qonto connection to make in the live app today, and nothing you can ask us to switch on for your account. The e-reporting leg of the reform (B2C sales, cross-border B2B, and payment data) is not covered yet. If you are a French business preparing for September 2026, contact us before relying on Financica alone.
Other countries
We do not currently offer e-invoicing registration outside the countries listed above. As an EU-wide backstop, the VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) reform requires e-invoicing and digital reporting for cross-border B2B transactions from 1 July 2030, which every member state has to accommodate.