Accounts receivable e-invoicing in the UK: send and get paid

For accounts receivable, e-invoicing means your sales invoices travel as data over Peppol, straight into your customer's system. From April 2029, VAT invoices to UK businesses and the public sector must be e-invoices, so AR teams need clean customer data, a Peppol connection and a way to deal with invoices that are rejected.

Done well, it should also mean fewer lost invoices and fewer "we never got it" excuses.

What is confirmed

• Mandatory e-invoicing for VAT invoices from April 2029, B2B and B2G (government consultation response).
• Decentralised exchange through service providers; no government portal.
• Peppol is the network: the GOV.UK Tax update 2026 summary says "the electronic procurement system Peppol will be the core interoperability network for e-invoicing in the UK."
• No real-time reporting to HMRC alongside the mandate.

Not yet confirmed: the exact data standard and any UK-specific rules, phasing, exemptions and how B2C invoicing is treated. Expect detail in the roadmap at Budget 2026 on 28 October 2026.

The send process, step by step

1. Raise the invoice in your billing, accounting or ERP system.
2. Convert it to a Peppol invoice (in UBL format, under Peppol BIS Billing 3.0).
3. Validate it against the Peppol rules. Errors such as totals that do not add up or missing VAT breakdowns are caught here.
4. Look up the customer's Peppol ID to find their Access Point.
5. Deliver through your Access Point.
6. Track delivery and any invoice response the customer sends back.

Your software should do steps 2 to 5 automatically. Your team owns step 1 and the exceptions.

Customer data you will need

The biggest AR task is master data. For each in-scope customer, hold:

Field	Why it matters
Legal name and address	Must match the customer's records and VAT invoice rules
UK VAT number	Helps identify the customer and is often used as the basis of the Peppol ID
Peppol ID (scheme and value)	Where to send the invoice
Buyer reference / PO number	Some buyers reject invoices without one. See buyer reference BT-10
Invoice contact	Who to chase for queries

Verify VAT numbers with HMRC's Check a UK VAT number service. To find a customer's Peppol ID, ask them or use the Peppol Directory. The Peppol code list includes scheme 9932 for UK VAT numbers, but customers may use other identifiers such as a GLN (scheme 0088). See Peppol EAS codes for the UK.

Make sure every invoice is a valid VAT invoice

An e-invoice is still a VAT invoice. HMRC's VAT Notice 700 (section 16) sets out what a full VAT invoice must show, including a unique sequential number, time of supply, supplier and customer details, VAT number, description, quantity, rate and VAT totals. HMRC also says you should normally issue a VAT invoice within 30 days of the tax point. Section 17.7 says an electronic invoice "must include all the information that's required on a paper VAT invoice". See UK VAT invoice requirements.

Exceptions: the new AR workload

Expect three new kinds of exception.

Validation failures. The invoice breaks a Peppol rule before it is delivered. Common causes are rounding differences, wrong VAT category codes and missing fields. Learn the common validation errors, starting with BR-CO-15.

Delivery failures. The customer is not on Peppol, or the ID is wrong. Decide a fallback before go-live.

Business rejections. The customer receives the invoice but rejects it, perhaps for a missing PO. If they send a Peppol Invoice Response with status RE (rejected) or UQ (under query), your software can route it to the right person.

Assign an owner to each type, with a target time to fix.

Credit notes and corrections

You cannot edit an e-invoice once sent. Corrections are made with a credit note referencing the original, then a new invoice if needed. Make sure your system can send Peppol credit notes, not just invoices.

Getting paid faster

E-invoicing removes some common causes of late payment: lost emails, keying errors, invoices sent to the wrong person. The government's consultation response cites industry research reporting a 20% reduction in late payments upon adoption. Treat that as a reported figure, not a promise. What you can control:

• include the PO and buyer reference every time;
• use the customer's exact legal entity;
• track invoice responses so disputes surface early;
• monitor which customers do not acknowledge invoices.

Questions to ask your billing or accounting provider

1. Can you send Peppol invoices and credit notes for UK VAT invoices?
2. Do you validate against Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 before sending, and show which rule failed?
3. Can you look up customers' Peppol IDs automatically?
4. Do you show delivery status and incoming invoice responses?
5. How are attachments, such as timesheets, sent? See invoice attachments.
6. Can several billing systems feed one Peppol connection?

More detail: checking your software's Peppol support.

What to do now

• List in-scope customers and collect VAT numbers, Peppol IDs and PO rules.
• Check every system that raises invoices can produce structured data.
• Ask your provider the six questions above.
• Agree owners for validation, delivery and rejection exceptions.
• Pilot with one or two customers already on Peppol, such as public-sector buyers.

Then add AR to your project plan and readiness checklist.