Extract data from Peppol e-invoices

Peppol turns an invoice into a message that two accounting systems exchange without a human in between. Instead of emailing a PDF, a supplier hands a structured UBL invoice to its Peppol Access Point, which routes it across the network to the buyer's Access Point using participant identifiers on both ends, the four-corner model that public buyers across Europe now mandate. The payload follows Peppol BIS Billing 3.0, a customisation of the EN 16931 standard, so the same Business Terms travel on every invoice regardless of which system generated it. Reading a Peppol invoice is a matter of the Business Terms and the routing metadata around them. Each field maps to a coded term: the invoice number is BT-1, the specification identifier that declares Peppol conformance is BT-24, the buyer reference that carries a public body's Leitweg-ID is BT-10, and the payment means code follows UNTDID 4461. Sender and receiver appear not only as company names but as electronic addresses, the participant identifiers an Access Point uses to deliver the document. A receiver that also keeps a PDF rendering needs both views to agree. Talonic reads a Peppol invoice, whether from the UBL payload or its PDF rendering, into the Business Term structure a downstream system expects. An invoice from Aachen Data Systems GmbH to a Brandenburg public authority, carrying a Leitweg-ID and a SEPA payment means code, returns its participant identifiers, two service lines, a 19% VAT breakdown, and a gross total of 18,088.00 EUR that reconciles to the amount due for the receiving Access Point.

What gets extracted from Peppol e-invoices

How extraction works for Peppol e-invoices

A Peppol document is structured UBL by design, but it reaches many teams as a PDF rendering, a print export, or a validation report, and the coded Business Terms still have to be recovered. Talonic classifies the invoice and maps every value to its EN 16931 business term in the Field Registry, so BT-1, the BT-24 specification identifier, the BT-10 buyer reference, and the payment means code resolve by meaning rather than by position on the page. Supplier and buyer participant identifiers are captured as electronic addresses alongside their VAT identifiers, the VAT breakdown must sum to the tax total and the payable, and the Leitweg-ID that routes a public-sector invoice is preserved. Confidence and pixel-region provenance for each field follow DIN SPEC 91491, so an interoperability analyst can reconcile the rendered invoice against the message the Access Point delivered.

Sample extraction

A Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 e-invoice to a public authority

{
  "document_number": "RE-2026-11827",
  "document_date": "2026-06-30",
  "invoice_type_code": "380",
  "specification_identifier": "urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017#compliant#urn:fdc:peppol.eu:2017:bis3:ubl",
  "currency": "EUR",
  "buyer_reference": "04011000-1234512345-06",
  "supplier": {
    "name": "Aachen Data Systems GmbH",
    "tax_id": "DE290143756",
    "peppol_id": "0204:DE290143756",
    "city": "Aachen",
    "country_code": "DE"
  },
  "buyer": {
    "name": "Ministerium für Digitales Brandenburg",
    "peppol_id": "0204:04011000",
    "city": "Potsdam",
    "country_code": "DE"
  },
  "line_items": [
    {
      "line_id": "1",
      "item_name": "Cloud platform subscription, annual",
      "quantity": 12,
      "quantity_unit_code": "MON",
      "item_net_price": 1200,
      "line_net_amount": 14400,
      "item_vat_category_code": "S",
      "item_vat_rate": 19
    },
    {
      "line_id": "2",
      "item_name": "Onboarding services",
      "quantity": 5,
      "quantity_unit_code": "HUR",
      "item_net_price": 160,
      "line_net_amount": 800,
      "item_vat_category_code": "S",
      "item_vat_rate": 19
    }
  ],
  "subtotal": 15200,
  "total_amount_without_vat": 15200,
  "vat_breakdown": [
    {
      "vat_category_code": "S",
      "vat_category_taxable_amount": 15200,
      "vat_category_rate": 19,
      "vat_category_tax_amount": 2888
    }
  ],
  "tax_amount": 2888,
  "payment_means_code": "58",
  "iban": "DE21370501980001234567",
  "bic": "AACSDE33XXX",
  "total_amount": 18088,
  "amount_due": 18088
}

Frequently asked