Electronic invoicing in the construction industry

As from the 1st of January, it is permitted for contractors in the Netherlands and Belgium to send invoices electronically to the government via a secured link.

‍Emailing a PDF invoice won’t be enough, the invoice has to be delivered in the UBL format. UBL stands for Universal Business Language and is the worldwide default language for e-invoicing.

Electronic invoicing (e-invoicing) is the future. It is faster, easier, more precise and it saves businesses a lot of administrative hassle. Besides this also third parties can profit financially. Research shows that if The Netherlands transition to e-invoicing processes, in time companies can save a yearly amount of €1.2 billion. Every party involved in this issue admits that this milestone is necessary.

‍An e-invoice is a systematically set up, electronic file (no PDF) where all data has its own meaning ans is always set on a specific spot in the file. The current set XML format of the government is UBL 2.1. An email with a PDF-invoice won’t be accepted by the government. When you are going to invoice electronically to the government, directly or via your software provider, you are facing the following challenges:

• The implementing of or the converting to the right format, UBL 2.1

• Putting unique OIN number on XML of receiving party at the government

• Connecting to the Digipoort or Simplerinvoicing network to send invoices to the government (emailing is not allowed)

Want to learn even more about how e-invoicing works? Take a look at our blog.

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Banqup Group is providing the following

• Connection to Simplerinvoicing for sending but also for receiving invoices

• Conversion of INSBOU003 to UBL 2.1 (default government format)

• Link table between GLN and OIN number

The process is easy. Your business provides us with INSBOU003 invoices through a secured link. We then convert this to UBL 2.1 en deliver the invoice to the government via the Simplerinvoicing network.

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Costs

‍This depends on how you can connect. With several construction industry software we already realised standard sending links. In this case you will only pay for the invoice you’re sending. But even custom connections won’t have to be expensive. A condition is that your software can provide INSBOU003 or UBL 2.1 to Banqup. Not just the construction industry, but multiple industries are switching to electronic invoicing as from the 1st of January 2017.