Belgium showed what rushing does to you
On January 1, 2026, all Belgian VAT-registered companies were required to switch to structured e-invoices via Peppol. By early December 2025, one month before the deadline, half of the affected companies had not yet registered. What followed was a sprint: in the final weeks of the year, the registration rate shot up to over 75 percent.
"E-invoicing is not a replacement for the PDF. If you treat it as such, you comply with the law, but you haven't improved your P2P process one bit."
Maarten Pronk, S2P Consultant
Many of these organizations are now compliant. But compliant and ready are two different things. What we see in practice is that companies connect a service provider, send and receive a Peppol invoice, and leave the rest of their P2P process untouched. Matching, posting, handling discrepancies, communication with suppliers: it all proceeds exactly as it did before.
And Belgium isn't finished yet. As of January 1, 2028, there will be near-real-time e-reporting on top of the current obligation. Anyone who implements the bare minimum solution now will face the same issue all over again then.
The Netherlands now has a date too
In January 2026, EY, commissioned by the Ministry of Finance, delivered the report ViDA e-invoicing and digital reporting . The cabinet responded on March 10, 2026, with a clear direction. Peppol will be the recommended foundation for e-invoicing in the Netherlands. The Dutch cabinet is opting for the broader variant: an obligation for domestic B2B invoices as well, not just cross-border ones. The schedule is as follows:
- Q4 2026 - public consultation on the legislative proposal
- By mid-2028 at the latest - final legislation
- 2030–2032 - phased rollout
That sounds like plenty of time. It isn't. The gap between "the law is in place" and "our organization is ready" is exactly the journey Belgium has just completed. That journey requires time, budget, and a well-considered approach.
E-invoicing is not a standalone project. It is a P2P issue
The mistake we see most often is treating e-invoicing as a billing issue. In reality, it is about something much bigger. A structured e-invoice is only valuable if the rest of your Purchase-to-Pay process is set up for it. Think of:
- Automatic matching against orders and receipts, without manual intervention
- Direct, automated handling of discrepancies with the supplier
- Real-time insight into liabilities, lead times, and working capital
- Clear, predictable communication with suppliers throughout the entire order process. Not just the invoice
If you only arrange the technical connection to Peppol, nothing changes at the core of your Accounts Payable process. You have an electronic file instead of a PDF, and otherwise, everyone continues working as before. The real gain isn't in the channel itself; it's in what you do with the data once it arrives in a structured, complete, and reliable format.
The time is now; later, you'll just be putting out fires.
Every organization must comply with the Peppol mandate. Not compliant yet? It’s on your roadmap regardless. The budget will need to be allocated, and the organization will have to adapt one way or another.
This is the moment to look beyond mere legal compliance. If you don't, you’ll end up—just like the late adopters in Belgium—at the eleventh hour with a bare-minimum solution. It will be compliant, but it’s one you’ll have to overhaul just a few years later.
Changing twice costs more time and money than going through the change once. Plus, you miss the opportunity to improve your end-to-end Purchase-to-Pay process.
E-invoicing is a requirement. A better Purchase-to-Pay process is a choice. Tackling both at once is the only approach that ensures you don't pay twice.
Want to know where your organization stands and what an e-invoicing project can do for your P2P process? At S2P & More, we combine both issues from the start: from baseline assessment and business case to process design and rollout.
Contact us for a no-obligation conversation about your e-invoicing and P2P strategy.
.jpg)
.jpg)
