About Service Providers

About Service Providers

eInvoicing generates and validates PEPPOL XML, but it doesn't ship invoices over the network on its own. That's the job of a service provider — a PEPPOL Access Point with a contract with the PEPPOL authority. Your service provider is who actually puts your XML into the recipient's mailbox (and vice versa for incoming).

Why you need one

• PEPPOL is a four-corner model: Sender → Sender's Access Point → Receiver's Access Point → Receiver. The two Access Points are service providers; they handle authentication, routing, retries, and standards compliance.
• You can't just POST UBL XML to a customer — they don't accept random HTTP. They accept it from a PEPPOL Access Point.

Supported integrations

Both providers handle the heavy lifting of the four-corner model. You configure credentials in eInvoicing, and the app routes outgoing documents to them and ingests incoming documents from them.

How outbound works

Sales Invoice → EDocument (UBL XML) → Validate → Transmit via API
   → Service Provider (B2B Router / Recommand)
   → Peppol network → Recipient's Access Point → Recipient

The EDocument status updates to "Transmission Successful" and the provider's document ID is stored in the reference field for later tracking.

How inbound works

Both paths converge on the same EDocument lifecycle: create → detect → validate → match → create Purchase Invoice.

Adding another provider

The integration is pluggable. To add a third provider:

1. Create <provider>_api.py with a client class exposing transmit_invoice(xml) and poll_inbox()
2. Add a route in api.py's transmit_edocument() and poll_incoming_invoices()
3. Add the new value to the EDocument Integrator Select field on EDocument Integration Settings

Architecture details: see the edocument_integration repo on GitHub.

Next

• Setting Up a Provider — credentials and DocType setup
• Configuring a Service Provider — webhook URL and polling
• Sending & Receiving — day-to-day usage