PEPPOL and Mercurius in Belgium: All you need to know

Since 2018, the Belgian government has been promoting PEPPOL usage for their purchasing invoices. By the end of 2023, any company awarded a public tender from any government entities in Belgium will have to send these through the PEPPOL network. To ease the access to it for their suppliers, the government developed the Mercurius portal. After reading this article, you will be able to answer the main questions you may have about the link between Mercurius and PEPPOL.

What is Mercurius?

Mercurius is an initiative of the Belgian government. It consists of a software platform on which all Belgian public services, both federal and federated, receive and process electronic invoices and other documents in UBL format. All this information passes through the PEPPOL pan-European electronic invoicing network, to which Mercurius is connected.

Who uses Mercurius?

Mercurius must be used by all Belgian public authorities. The platform also enables companies with a low number of B2G invoices each year to send them through an online form.
It is also open to businesses that don’t have modern invoicing software connected to the PEPPOL network.

How can I send invoices to the Mercurius platform?

As a Belgian company, you can create an account on the Mercurius portal. Once you have access, you will have to encode manually the invoices data.

Of course, the best way to send invoices to public authorities is to use an invoicing software that is directly connected to PEPPOL. The Belgian authorities are setting up a list of softwares that have proven to enable this easily. More will be added.

PEPPOL for B2G invoices: Your obligations as a public administration

As a public administration, Mercurius enables you to comply with the obligation to receive PEPPOL invoices. The basic configuration enables those PEPPOL invoices to be transferred to you on the email address of your choice. This is the minimal way to comply.

To get the full advantage of e-invoicing, you need the software that you are using to manage your incoming invoices to be connected to Mercurius, so that those invoices will automatically pop up in that software. If your software does not support this yet, you can recommend your software provider to contact Digiteal to add this capability.

Using Digiteal to send invoices to Mercurius

Saving time is saving money. Replacing low-value added tasks by automated processes definitely has to be one of your priorities.

Your invoicing software has to be connected with a certified PEPPOL Access Point, so that, once you issue a new invoice, it will be dispatched automatically to the administration through PEPPOL.

Digiteal is promoting the European standards for a few years now, and therefore developed expertise among other on this topic. If your invoicing solution does not enable you to automatically send invoices through PEPPOL, you can recommend them to contact Digiteal to add this capability.