The Peppol network (Pan-European Public Procurement Online) is a secure, standardized system that allows businesses and public authorities to exchange electronic documents, such as e-invoices, across borders. As part of the EU’s move to mandatory e-invoicing, several countries are requiring the use of Peppol — or a similar certified network — to send and receive invoices. 

While Harvest itself is not a Peppol gateway, Harvest can help you to prepare e-invoices to send through an external Peppol gateway. 

You may need to further edit these files to meet both EU-wide rules and your country-specific requirements.

Enable UBL exports and Peppol

1. In Invoices > Configure, go to the Company information tab.
2. Check the Export invoices in UBL format box.
3. Enter your company’s UBL export values in the fields that appear.
4. Enter your (optional) Peppol network requirements.
5. Click Save company information.

You can learn more in our article about UBL (XML) exports for e-invoicing.

Create Peppol invoices

Units of measurement

Peppol requires associating a unit of measurement to the product(s) or service(s) included on each line item. While creating a new invoice, you'll see an additional field for Units. This field is auto-populated and required.

For tracked time, hours will be automatically assigned the unit code HUR, displayed as Hours.

For expenses, default expense categories are automatically assigned to the following units:

• Entertainment - Items
• Lodging - Days
• Meals - Items
• Mileage - Distance
• Transportation - Journeys
• Other - Other

That said, you can edit these associated units under Manage > Expense Categories > Edit. 

You can also create custom expense categories under Manage > Expense Categories > New category. 

Custom expense categories are auto-populated with the unit type Other, but can be changed to best represent the type of expense.

If you're unsure about the best fit for a new expense, we recommend selecting Items or Other, as these are good catch-alls — but note that we accept no liability for the accuracy of your invoices.

When invoicing for default or custom expense categories, each line item will be auto-populated with the unit of measurement chosen for that category.

If you choose to aggregate expenses within an invoice, the Units field will be populated with Other, as the line item will most often make reference to expenses of multiple units.

Payment method specifiers

Peppol also requires indicating your preferred payment method within the UBL code. 

While exporting your e-invoice from Harvest, you can choose your preferred payment method from the displayed dropdown menu. This can be:

1. Integrating with Stripe or PayPal and enabling payment,
2. Including bank details under Invoices > Configure > Company information, or
3. Listing alternative payment methods under Invoices > Configure > Company information.

From there, codes are produced by each of these sources:

1. For Stripe or PayPal, the code produced is 48 (meaning bank card).
2. For bank details, the code produced is 30 (meaning bank transfer).
3. For alternative payment methods, please refer to Peppol’s dictionary, as the options included are the exact descriptors used by Peppol.