Knowledge · E-invoicing
Why ERP, accounting and finance software needs e-invoicing as a feature now
E-invoicing deadlines
At first glance the legal timetable looks relaxed, but it pulls demand in your product forward. Since 1 January 2025, all domestic B2B companies must be able to receive e-invoices. From 2027, companies with more than 800,000 euros in total turnover in the previous year must issue e-invoices; from 2028 all others follow.
At European level, the VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) initiative continues this course, with mandatory e-invoicing for cross-border B2B transactions from July 2030.
In Germany, the statistical business register counts around 3.5 million companies (Destatis, reporting year 2024), and the B2B e-invoicing rules touch practically all domestic business transactions.
As a provider you cannot simply wait for the deadlines; you need to act beforehand. With the receiving obligation in force since 2025, many companies have already put their own systems to the test. The further deadlines sharpen this situation.
A customer who must send e-invoices from 2027 cannot wait until 1 January 2027 to make the switch.
What is at stake if your product does not support e-invoicing
Issuing and receiving invoices are functions a company is reluctant to run across two separate systems. If your software can neither receive nor send e-invoices cleanly, exactly this break occurs. The customer first makes do with an interim solution and then asks the fundamental question of whether another product delivers both from a single source.
This switching moment is expensive. Whoever changes the core system over a missing function takes accounting, master data and adjacent processes along.
A single missing feature can thus become the trigger for a change of provider. The more suitable functions software solutions offer, the less likely it becomes that customers switch to other providers.
Anchoring e-invoicing reliably in your product secures the basis for long-term customer retention.
Advantages of the Peppol integration
Securely sending and receiving e-invoices via Peppol, the international network for the standardised exchange of electronic invoices, is a practical way for you to offer and bill e-invoicing as a distinct function. A requirement you have to meet anyway becomes an additional revenue building block.
Three levers are particularly relevant for software, ERP and finance providers:
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Monetisation
You provide e-invoice sending as a paid function or as part of a higher-value package and generate additional revenue per customer.
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Customer retention
A function that reaches deep into the invoicing process and is tied to your product via the Peppol registration raises the switching hurdle noticeably. The customer anchors a mandatory process in your software and stays.
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Positioning
A provider that offers e-invoicing early and reliably enters sales conversations as a prepared partner while others still point to a roadmap. In tenders and comparisons that is a concrete differentiator.
Requirements for the Peppol integration
Offering e-invoicing via Peppol means more than producing a standard-compliant format. You need a certified access point, secure transmission via AS4, the SMP and SML directory services, ongoing maintenance of formats and validation rules, and operations with monitoring and delivery status. Add to that registering your end customers in the Peppol network.
Each of these building blocks is solvable; in sum, however, they add up to an infrastructure project of your own that has to be maintained permanently.
For most providers the decision therefore comes down to a classic question: do you want to build and run the infrastructure yourself, or embed a ready-made solution?
InvoiceRails as the e-invoicing feature for your software
InvoiceRails is the certified Peppol Access Point from fino data services and brings e-invoicing into your product as a function via a single API.
Sending and receiving e-invoices, validation against EN 16931, embedded customer registration, delivery status and operations all run through InvoiceRails. You and your team stay focused on your core competence and have a strong partner at your side.
InvoiceRails covers more than 60 formats. They build on the two syntaxes UBL and CII and range from Peppol BIS Billing through XRechnung and ZUGFeRD to Factur-X. Validation rules and format updates are maintained continuously.
You connect the API once and can then offer all customers secure sending and receiving of e-invoices, on request also as a white-label solution.
Your customers’ Peppol registration runs embedded in your interface, without media breaks and without a third-party portal. You go live within a few weeks instead of investing months in your own certification and implementation.
The commercial customer relationship stays with you; there is no competing product aimed at your end customers.
Especially when working with sensitive data, security is the basis of a trusting customer relationship. Behind InvoiceRails stands fino data services, which is ISO 27001 certified and in the market for over 10 years.
InvoiceRails provides the technical foundation, and you decide what the feature looks like in your interface, how you bill it and how you market it.
