1. The obligation is an opportunity

Authorities require e-invoicing within the framework of European Directive 2014/55/EU. The Government of Flanders has been asking for e-invoices from its suppliers for all contracts since 1.1.2017. This obligation is an opportunity for you as a company. Take advantage of it to digitise your entire invoicing process and thus take an important step towards further digitisation
Make a choice that is strategic and carefully thought through.

2. Policy of the Government of Flanders

End-to-end e-procurement

The Government of Flanders is committed to fully digital processing of public contracts and their related processes: end-to-end e-procurement. E-invoicing is an important module in this digital processing.

On 12 July 2013, the Government of Flanders decided that the entities of the Government of Flanders must be able to receive e-invoices as from 1 January 2015.  The electronic receipt of invoices must be the standard working method as from 1 January 2017. See the BVR [Decision of the GF] of 12 July 2013 and the note (dutch) pertaining thereto.

On 16/12/2016, the Government of Flanders took a new decision on e-invoicing.

From 1 January 2017 onwards, for all new public contracts, the supplier must issue a compliant e-invoice. For invoices for orders less than €8,500, micro-enterprises could be given an extra year's time.

European Directive on e-invoicing

With this policy, the Government of Flanders anticipates European Directive 2014/55/EU on e-invoicing. With this directive, the EU commits its governments to stimulating the use of e-invoicing. Having observed that there is not enough e-invoicing, it aims to encourage the spread of e-invoicing in the B2B environment by making it compulsory to issue e-invoices for government contracts. 

The European Commission published the European standard for e-invoicing on 17 October 2017. Member States now have time until 18 April 2019 to implement and apply it. This means that from that date onwards no e-invoice that complies with that standard may be rejected. For local authorities, time will most likely be given until 18 April 2020 (to be decided by the federal government when adopting the European directive into law).
E-invoicing to government bodies will then be a fact.

The Governments of Flanders and Belgium are anticipating that directive. The Government of Flanders decided that, as from 1 January 2017, only e-invoices may be issued for all new public procurement contracts.

The Federal government decided that e-invoices must be issued for all newly-published public procurement contracts as from 1 January 2018.

3. Select the appropriate option for your company

Going for electronic invoicing means that you are choosing the most appropriate option for your company. Do you have lots of outgoing invoices, or not so many? Do you have many government customers? Do you have an ERP or do you create invoices in Word, for example?

Several scenarios are possible:

B2B = Business 2 Business, invoicing between companies
B2G = Business 2 Government, invoicing between companies and government bodies

4. Using the PEPPOL-model

The Flemish and Federal government opted for the PEPPOL model, together with AGORIA and the VBO. This is the smartest way to do e-invoicing. You will find more information about the choice of PEPPOL on PEPPOL and MERCURIUS (dutch).

Using the PEPPOL model offers you the guarantee that you will be able to work with the European standard and that you can e-invoice in both the B2G and the B2B environment.
The PEPPOL model is a thoroughly reliable model that reduces manual work and only works with ACCESS POINTS. In Belgium, there is an authority which supervises the proper use of this model. This authority role has been assumed by the Federal Government (BOSA).

Any business can use this PEPPOL model. How you use this is of course dependent on the volume of your invoices and your financial system, invoicing or accounting software.

How to send correct invoices? Find out here:

Indicate which system your company is currently using and we will get you started in a few steps: 

4D. Overview of the apps working in PEPPOL

5. Which Flemish government bodies can you reach via the PEPPOL model?

This list will help you to find out.

6. Database of all Belgian receivers of PEPPOL-documents

You can find this database at:
https://digital.belgium.be/e-invoicing/PeppolSearch.html

7. Which companies send e-invoices with PEPPOL?

In this list you will find the suppliers who send e-invoices to the public sector.