Reference · receiving

Someone sent you an e-invoice

A supplier sent an XML file, or a PDF with something odd attached to it, and the usual answer (open it and look) did not work. Here is what you were sent and what to do with it.

An e-invoice is an invoice written for a machine to read. It is a structured document whose every field has a defined meaning, in one of the two XML syntaxes EN 16931 is expressed in — OASIS UBL 2.1 or UN/CEFACT Cross Industry Invoice. It may arrive as a bare XML file, or wrapped inside a PDF; that is what Factur-X and ZUGFeRD are, one file carrying both a page a person reads and the XML document a machine reads. When both are present the XML is the invoice, and the page is a convenience.

Read it

The free viewer opens a UBL or CII document and lays it out as an invoice (parties, lines, VAT breakdown, totals) so you can see what it says. It reads the file in your own browser: nothing is uploaded, and no copy reaches any server. No account, and nothing to install.

Check it

Reading is not the same as judging. The free checker runs the EN 16931 business rules CEN publishes against the document and names every rule it fails, with where in the document it failed. That is the question worth asking about an invoice you did not write, and it also runs entirely in your own browser.

If it came inside a PDF

Neither tool accepts a PDF. Both read XML only, so a Factur-X or ZUGFeRD file has to have its XML taken out before either can be used on it — the XML inside is exactly the document they read. Whatever produced the file, and most accounting software that emits one, can also export the attachment.

What none of this tells you

Opening a document, or checking it against the rules, says nothing about whether you are obliged to be able to receive e-invoices at all, or from when. That differs by country and is the one thing on this site kept with the statute for each answer, on the e-invoicing deadline checker and its list of every date in order. It says nothing about how long you must keep the document either, and neither tool stores anything: close the tab and there is nothing left to keep. EUInvoice does not transmit invoices over Peppol, KSeF or Chorus Pro / PPF.