{"id":719150,"date":"2023-09-28T22:37:14","date_gmt":"2023-09-29T03:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.spscommerce.com\/?p=719150"},"modified":"2024-10-07T09:06:38","modified_gmt":"2024-10-07T14:06:38","slug":"e-invoicing-in-the-netherlands-everything-you-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spscommerce.com\/eur\/blog\/e-invoicing-in-the-netherlands-everything-you-need-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"E-Invoicing in The Netherlands: Everything You Need to Know"},"content":{"rendered":"

Update – October 19, 2022<\/i><\/p>\n

With the arrival of the\u00a0EU E-Invoicing Directive 2014\/55\/EU<\/a>, it became clear that The Netherlands\u2014and all other countries in the EU\u2014had to make business-to-government (B2G) e-invoicing mandatory. For The Netherlands, that deadline has well passed, and today, e-invoicing is gaining momentum\u2014even in the B2B space!<\/p>\n

In The Netherlands, all public and contracting government authorities must be able to receive e-invoices. The implementation of e-invoicing has been executed by the adoption of the Peppol framework for setting up an exchange infrastructure. Currently, all Dutch government agencies have direct or indirect connections to the Peppol infrastructure. This is the so-called DIGIPOORT, used for the reception of electronic invoices.<\/p>\n

From a global point of view, it\u2019s clear that e-invoicing is here to stay, and, especially in The Netherlands, it\u2019s taking over as the preferred invoice exchange method – regardless of industry.<\/p>\n

E-invoicing is here to stay in today’s B2G and B2B environment and we expect it to only continue to grow in The Netherlands. But let’s start at the beginning….<\/p>\n

E-Invoicing History to Date<\/strong><\/h2>\n

E-invoicing was introduced in The Netherlands on January 1st<\/sup>, 2011. From that moment on, central government agencies were legally required to be able to\u00a0receive and process<\/strong>\u00a0e-invoices via\u00a0Digipoort<\/a>, the central hub where message traffic for the government is handled.<\/p>\n

The obligation to\u00a0send<\/strong>\u00a0e-invoices was extended to central government suppliers on January 1st<\/sup>, 2017. It wasn\u2019t until August 2019, however, that this was\u00a0strictly monitored or enforced<\/a>; the central government wanted to give entrepreneurs time to prepare for the new way of invoicing.<\/p>\n

On\u00a0April 18th<\/sup>, 2019<\/a>, the e-invoicing obligation was further extended to all Dutch sub-central governments (in addition to central governments), government organizations, and other contracting authorities. This meant that these public authorities also had to be able to\u00a0receive and process<\/strong>\u00a0e-invoices from their suppliers according to the European standard format.<\/p>\n

But this didn\u2019t mean that all Dutch government agencies had fully switched to e-invoicing by April 2019. That\u2019s because their suppliers were not legally required to\u00a0send<\/strong>\u00a0e-invoices\u2014public authorities only had to be capable of receiving and processing e-invoices should any number of their suppliers choose to utilize it. Not surprisingly, the majority of suppliers opted to stick to their usual way of doing business. They were reluctant to switch to e-invoicing because they were more comfortable sending the paper invoices or scanned PDFs that they had been creating for years. In practice, this situation still occurs regularly.<\/p>\n

All of this, combined with the fact that the Dutch central government\u2014until August 2019\u2014did not strictly monitor or enforce e-invoicing, meant that e-invoicing didn\u2019t really take off in The Netherlands until almost 10 years from when it was first introduced back in 2011.<\/p>\n

That brings us to today. The Netherlands is finally at the point in which enough public and private sector organizations have adopted e-invoicing for its benefits to be more widely addressed within the business community. Despite the lack of mandate at the state level for suppliers to\u00a0send<\/strong>\u00a0e-invoices, we\u2019re starting to see that more and more public authorities are encouraging their suppliers to make the switch by communicating the \u201cwhy\u201d behind something that otherwise seems to be nothing more than an inconvenience. And now, with the help of\u00a0onboarding services\u00a0from service providers like SPS Commerce, the transition to e-invoicing can be quite simple for suppliers.<\/p>\n

How Can I Get Started with E-Invoicing?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

If you\u2019re a supplier, there are various ways in which you can send e-invoices, so the first step is to determine which solution is right for you based on your specific needs. To figure this out, you can start by calculating the number of invoices you send each month or each year along with the number of customers you have. From there, you should also evaluate the capabilities of your ICT infrastructure. If you\u2019re a buyer, the initial \u201cgetting started\u201d process is virtually the same, only the other way around, of course.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re getting started with B2G e-invoicing in The Netherlands, the Dutch government is connected to the secure\u00a0Peppol network. That being said, it\u2019s absolutely critical to choose a service provider that acts as a Peppol Access Point (AP), such as SPS Commerce. In doing so, you\u2019ll be able to send e-invoices to all connected institutions in The Netherlands and abroad, including private organizations, with one simple connection. The Peppol network is also increasingly being used in the B2B space, so choosing a service provider that serves as an AP is a smart choice regardless.<\/p>\n

You can send invoices via Peppol in the following ways: \u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n