PEPPOL-EN16931-R003
Peppol BIS 3.0
FATAL
Official rule text
A buyer reference or purchase order reference MUST be provided.
What this error means
Peppol requires either a buyer reference (BT-10) or a purchase order reference (BT-13). Public-sector buyers route incoming invoices with these fields, so at least one must be present.
How to fix it
- Add
cbc:BuyerReferencewith the reference your customer gave you, or - Add
cac:OrderReference/cbc:IDwith the PO number. - Ask the buyer which one they expect - sending the wrong one delays payment even when validation passes.
Example
✗ Rejected
<Invoice><!-- neither BuyerReference nor OrderReference -->
✓ Accepted
<Invoice> <cbc:BuyerReference>PO-4711</cbc:BuyerReference>
Related rules
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