Peppol is the network public bodies across Europe use to exchange structured electronic invoices. If you clean for a municipality, a region, a school or a state authority, your invoice usually has to arrive over Peppol rather than as a PDF attachment — and an invoice they can't receive is an invoice that doesn't get paid.
What is Peppol, exactly?
Peppol is a set of agreed formats and a network of access points that pass documents between them. Your system hands the invoice to an access point, the buyer's system collects it from theirs, and both ends read the same structured format — no email, no attachment, no one re-typing figures into a finance system.
The important word is structured. A PDF is a picture of an invoice: a person has to read it and copy the numbers. A Peppol invoice carries each amount, tax rate and reference as data the buyer's system books directly, which is precisely why large public buyers insist on it.
Who has to send e-invoices?
In Sweden, every supplier invoicing a public-sector buyer has had to send electronic invoices since 2019 — municipalities, regions and state authorities alike. Similar rules apply across the EU, and several countries are extending them to business-to-business invoicing over the next few years.
In practice the requirement reaches you through the contract. Public tenders state the invoicing format, a buyer reference and often an order number, and a supplier who can't meet it either loses the tender or pays a bureau to send each invoice by hand.
What do you need before you can send one?
Three things: a system that can produce the format, a route onto the network, and the buyer's details. The format is Peppol BIS Billing 3.0; the route is an access point; the details are the buyer's Peppol ID plus whatever reference they told you to quote.
That reference is where most rejections come from. Public buyers commonly require a purchase-order number or a department code on every invoice, and an invoice missing it bounces back regardless of how correct the rest of it is. Store it per site, once, rather than trusting somebody to remember it every month.
Is it worth it for a small cleaning company?
Public contracts are steady, sizeable and slow to lose — a school or a care home cleaned every weekday is exactly the kind of base that makes a rota work. The e-invoicing requirement is the first hurdle, and it's the reason many small operators never bid.
Once sending is built into the system you invoice from, the hurdle disappears: the monthly run for public sites looks the same as the one for private ones, and the invoices arrive in a form the buyer can pay without a phone call.
The short version
- Peppol carries structured invoices between suppliers and public buyers
- Swedish public bodies have required electronic invoices since 2019
- You need the format, an access point and the buyer's reference details
- Missing buyer references are the most common reason invoices are rejected
FAQ
Is a PDF invoice an e-invoice?
No. An e-invoice is structured data the buyer's system reads directly; a PDF is a document a person has to read. Public buyers that require e-invoicing will reject the PDF even when every figure on it is correct.
Do you need to join Peppol yourself?
You need a way onto the network, which normally means your invoicing system sends through an access point on your behalf. In SweepOS that part is built in — you enter the buyer's details and send the invoice as usual.
Does Peppol apply to private customers too?
It isn't required for households, and most private customers are happiest with a normal invoice. Larger private companies increasingly accept e-invoices as well, and several EU countries are extending mandates to business-to-business invoicing.
SweepOS builds the compliant e-invoice from the work you have already scheduled and sends it over Peppol, with buyer references stored per site — so winning a public contract doesn't mean taking on a second invoicing process.