This article features information about what to take into consideration when sending electronic invoices abroad from Procountor.
General remarks
Procountor does not by default support electronic invoicing abroad. With certain precautions sending electronic invoices abroad is technically possible. Procountor however cannot guarantee that the invoice will go through to the recipient successfully and therefore we recommend, when invoicing a foreign customer for the first time, that the biller company checks whether the invoice went through or not. It may take a few days for the electronic invoice to go through.
The electronic invoice provider partner in Procountor is Apix Messaging Oy. The instructions in this article have been drafted mainly with the viewpoint of Apix electronic invoice sending addresses.
Entering the invoice information in Procountor
When saving a sales invoice with foreign electronic invoice address the electronic invoice address can be entered to the Electronic invoice address field with the 9999 prefix, in the form 9999electronicinvoiceaddress. For example, if the customer’s electronic invoice address was 123456789, this could be entered as 9999123456789. With the 9999 prefix, Procountor accepts entering a foreign electronic invoice address without error messages, if the company has an Apix provided electronic invoice sending address in Management > Company info > E-Invoice and Scanning provider addresses.
The Electronic invoice operator field can be left empty when the electronic invoice address has been entered with the 9999 prefix. The intent is to send the electronic invoice to the sender’s electronic invoice operator Apix without information about the recipient’s electronic invoice operator.
Directing the invoice to the foreign operator
The sender’s electronic invoice operator Apix checks whether a routing can be found with the electronic invoice address and will send the invoice forward if routing can be found. The routing is checked also with foreign electronic invoice operators.
Through Apix it’s possible to send invoices to electronic invoice operators in these countries: Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Baltic countries. In other countries the operation is more limited but for example the whole PEPPOL network is available.
What to consider when sending invoices to PEPPOL network
As generally directed, when entering a PEPPOL electronic invoice address into Procountor on a sales invoice, the electronic invoice must be entered with the 9999 prefix. However, the actual electronic invoice address in PEPPOL consists of a country code prefix and the global location number GLN of the organization (in form countrycode:globallocationnumber). The country code prefix for Finnish companies for example is 0037 and the GLN is generally the Electronical Data Interchange ID. The country code prefix is different depending on the country or organization and the correct country code and GLB must be confirmed form the recipient of the invoice.
An example: The full electronic invoice in PEPPOL for a company is 0037:123456789. This would be entered in Procountor as 99990037:123456789. The Electronic invoice operator field would be left empty.
The 9999 prefix for the electronic invoice is needed in order to be able to leave the Electronic invoice operator field empty. The 9999 part is left out when Procountor directs the electronic invoice data to the sender’s electronic invoice operator Apix. Apix is then able to tell, based on the electronic invoice address being in form countrycode:globallocationnumber, that the invoice data will have to be converted suitable for PEPPOL and routed to the PEPPOL network.
When sending electronic invoices to PEPPOL to a customer for the first time, we recommend checking from the recipient in a few days whether the invoice went through successfully or not. PEPPOL does not send any feedback to the sending operator whether the invoice was received successfully or not, and there is no way to track the invoice’s movements in the PEPPOL network.