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The State Treasury is the Finnish Peppol authority

The State Treasury is an official member of the OpenPeppol Association. As a result of its membership, the State Treasury established its Peppol authority function in autumn 2022.

  • The Peppol network is intended for the transmission of electronic business documents

    Peppol is an open network through which different parties can transmit electronic business documents to each other in a standardised, sector-independent manner. Electronic business documents include catalogues, orders and order confirmations. The Peppol network is available through a Peppol service provider. The majority of Finland’s most important trading partners are promoting the use of Peppol in their regions.

    OpenPeppol AISBL is an international non-profit association registered in Belgium and under Belgian law, and it includes members from both the public and private sector. OpenPeppol is responsible for developing, maintaining and implementing the specifications, operating model and services of the Peppol network.

    The Finnish state requires that its suppliers are cabable of exchanging Peppol Advanced Ordering documents starting from 1.4.2024.

    The parties to Peppol are:

    • National Peppol authorities
    • Peppol Access Points, which are operated by the network’s service providers, and
    • End-users, such as companies and public organisations

    The duties of a Peppol authority

    The Finnish Peppol authority is the State Treasury, which

    • is responsible for the use of Peppol and coordinating the Finnish Peppol community
    • recruits and supports the service providers operating in its area of authority
    • monitors the compliance of Peppol service providers with OpenPeppol’s community rules.
    • supports and encourages organisations in the use of electronic Peppol business documents and the Peppol network
    • monitors the development of national legislation
    • coordinates training and increases competence
    • offers Finland the opportunity to participate and influence the development of the international Peppol network and its messaging practices. The development work is carried out openly and closely with stakeholders.

    The duties of a Peppol service providers

    • There are two types of service providers: some handle the transmission of electronic business documents while others are responsible for maintaining the network’s address register.
    • Peppol service providers are used to join the Peppol network. They transmit the end-user’s electronic business documents, add the end-user’s Peppol address to the address register, and provide support to end-users.

    End-user

    • The term end-user refers an organisation that sends and receives electronic business documents, such as orders or invoices.
    • Peppol service providers are used to transmit electronic business documents between end-users.

    Features of the Peppol network

    The Peppol network defines the following:

    • An administrative model
    • Agreements binding on the parties
    • Operating methods
    • Business processes and documents supported by Peppol network
    • The technical implementation of the network
    • Address register

    The figure below illustrates the basic structure of the Peppol infrastructure and its key parties:

    Access Point: A service provider role that connects end users to the infrastructure so that they can send documents to each other.
    SML (Service Metadata Locator): A central address directory of the infrastructure containing information on whether a requested address is registered in the Peppol network and which decentralised SMP has the details for that end-user.
    SMP (Service Metadata Provider), currently referred to as ACL (Address and Capability Lookup): a distributed directory that contains the end-user’s capabilities, i.e. what messages the end-user can process, and their physical data connection information.

    Want to participate?

    If you would like to participate in the Peppol community working groups and/or the work of the monitoring group organised by the national Peppol authority, please contact: peppol@valtiokonttori.fi

    The State Treasury is involved in the Real-Time Economy project, which organises webinars and training events on Peppol. Participate and stay up to date. Events arranged by the Real-Time Economy project

    THE LATEST NEWS AND INFORMATION ON PEPPOL

  • The Peppol network helps all companies get involved in the benefits of using electronic business documents

    For decades, companies have used various sector and company-specific solutions to send electronic documents. For example, retailers, industrial companies and importers have used procurement messages with their suppliers. However, the exchange of these electronic documents has been based on bilateral connections, the construction of which is laborious and cost-inefficient for many organisations.

    In Peppol, the exchange of information is based on a network-like model. This means that an organisation can use one connection to communicate with every other organisation in the same Peppol network. This model enables the cost-effective deployment of electronic documents across the entire business and public sector. The digitalisation of business documents is necessary for Finnish companies that wish to remain competitive in the Nordic and European marketspace.

    Electronic business documents provide numerous benefits

      • Avoid additional costs
        By using electronic business documents, you can allow your exchange of information to be handled by information systems. When you use Peppol business documents, your Peppol service provider connects you to all members of the Peppol network through a single connection. In the Peppol network, the exchange and processing of documents has been defined in advance, so you do not need to separately agree on any operating methods with your partners.
      • Avoid human errors
        The documents transmitted on the Peppol network are checked for errors before they are sent. You can be sure that the documents you send and receive, such as your invoices and orders, will not contain any human-made errors in e.g. their totals, which makes it easier to process them automatically.
      • Compatible processes
        The Peppol network focuses on processes, such as ordering or invoicing, instead of individual documents. By using Peppol documents, you can be sure that your documents are compatible with one another, from procurement to payment and at every stage of the process. In the best case scenario, you will avoid having to re-enter any existing data.
      • Security
        Data transfers between Peppol service providers are encrypted using a secure protocol (AS4). All service providers are certified and identified using PKI certificates. In addition, each service provider must adhere to uniform service level requirements to ensure the delay-free availability of the network and your business partners. The Peppol authority supervises the service providers in its region. The State Treasury acts as the Finnish Peppol authority.
      • Internationality
        The Peppol network includes service providers and users from more than 40 countries, and the network is constantly expanding. Currently, the network’s coverage is the best in the EU, but new countries from e.g. the Asian and American continents have also joined the network. The majority of Finland’s most important trading partners are promoting the use of Peppol in their national territories.
      • Switching service providers is easy.
        As an end-user, you can change your Peppol service provider while maintaining the same Peppol address. These changes are handled by the network’s service providers.

  • Experiences of the benefits of the Peppol network

    The Real-Time Economy project is carrying out Proof of Concept studies with companies and service providers on the benefits of Peppol. Their results will be published as the project progresses.

    The PoC Peppol procurement messages for the construction industry was carried out in Spring of 2023. Read more about the project’s PoC results (In Finnish).

  • Information about connecting to Peppol

    For more detailed instructions on joining the network, contact your Peppol service provider. See the list of all Peppol service providers.
    The Peppol authority directs and supervises the service providers that operate in Finland.

  • Peppol address

    A Peppol web address consists of two parts:

    • The code list ID (Scheme-id), which indicates the code list where the actual address is located
    • The address itself (EndPointID) i.e. the value in the reported code list

    The code lists used by different countries in Peppol are available here.

    Finnish organisations should use an OVT code as their actual address in the Peppol network. An OVT code is formatted as 003712345678ABCDE, where:

    • 0037 is a fixed and unchangeable value, and
    • 12345678 is the organisation’s business ID without the preceding hyphen
    • ABCDE is an extension. The extension includes up to five capital characters (A-Z) or numbers (0-9).

    Examples

    Example-Enterprise Oy:
    Business ID: 1234567-8
    OVT code: 003712345678
    Peppol address 0216:003712345678

    Example-Endeavour Oy:
    Business ID: 8765432-1
    OVT code: 003787654321ENDE4
    Peppol address 0216:003787654321ENDE4

    Your Peppol service provider will make sure that your Peppol address is entered into the address register.

  • Country-specific requirements in Finland
    • The Peppol addresses (Participant ID) of companies operating in Finland is OVT code 0216, in accordance with the ICD Code List used by Peppol. 
    • Peppol service providers operating in Finland must check that the business ID in their client’s Peppol address corresponds to the client’s business ID in the register of the Finnish Patent and Registration Office. 
    • The service providers must check their clients’ Peppol addresses on an annual basis. 
    • It is recommended that the service providers’ Peppol processes are ISO27001 compliant or that their processes are compatible with another equivalent certificate approved by Traficom. 
    • The service providers must report their transaction volumes annually by document to the Finnish Peppol authority. This reporting requirement will be replaced by a common Peppol-wide reporting provision once it is completed. 
    • The service providers must establish the addresses of Finnish public sector organisations in the ACL register maintained by the Finnish Peppol authority. 
    • If a client requests a change in their ACL register or Peppol Access Point, their service provider must implement this change within three working days. 

    For more information on all country-specific requirements, see the Peppol website.