In order to achieve better enforcement of VAT legislation, governments of various countries worldwide decided approximately 15 years ago and in conjunction with one another, to issue a number of new e-Invoicing rules.

1. It was decided that Paper and PDF invoices, after a certain period, would not remain legally valid in B2B transactions, but would be replaced by invoices in a structured format, such as UBL, Peppol BIS Billing 3.0, or other structured invoice formats.

2. It was also decided that the exchange of these e-Invoices had to take place mandatorily via the Peppol network or similar networks.

3. In addition to the definitions for Invoice Formats and Distribution Networks, the authorities also published a Four-corner e-Invoicing Model, which depicts the route that e-Invoices follow when they are sent from supplier to customer via the Peppol network. In this Four-corner model, it is stipulated that UBL invoices are automatically posted to the customer's accounting system directly upon receipt from the Peppol system.

This automated posting of purchase invoices from the Peppol network, was expected to result in significant labor savings, thereby acting as the Engine behind the adoption of e-Invoicing via Peppol.

The Four-corner Model of the authorities looks as follows:


All e-Invoicing stakeholders from the relevant countries, such as ERP software suppliers and other e-Invoicing service providers, were requested in a Covenant to comply with the newly issued rules during the development of their new e-Invoicing products. For example, ERP software vendors have made sure that the invoices created with their ERP apps are not only produced on paper or as a PDF, but also in the UBL format. They have also developed the mechanism that performs automatic invoice postings from the Peppol network into the customer's accounting system.

However, despite the efforts made by stakeholders, and the fact that many government agencies awarded contracts exclusively to suppliers using e-Invoicing in the hope that it would thus spread through the business community like an ink stain, hardly anything has come of that ink stain after 15 years, and in our opinion, this is due to the following:

Technically, it's quite a feat to post e-Invoices directly into the customer's accounting system from the Peppol network without any human intervention, but automatically posting Purchase Invoices, implicitly means that the invoices are booked Unvalidated and based on a standard pre-programmed journal entry in the customer's accounting system.

Traditionally, the underlying procurement documents like order forms, delivery notes, waybills, etc., are first attached to the received Purchase Invoices, after which they are Validated and Coded for posting in the accounting system, based on these documents.

But when Purchase Invoices are posted automatically from the Peppol network, it is not possible to attach the underlying procurement documents with the invoices, so Validation is skipped and the invoices are posted Unvalidated and based on a standard pre-programmed journal entry in customer's accounting system.

Posting Purchase Invoices Automatically in the accounting system, therefore results in the customer's accounting system to become unreliable, which is why automatic invoice postings are almost always rejected. We believe this is the reason why the adoption of e-Invoicing has failed, and if nothing changes, it will not take off in the future either.

To avoid the aforementioned problems, some ERP apps first save the booking rows in an intermediate file, after which accountants can determine from this intermediate file which invoices are allowed and which are not allowed into the accounting system.

In itself, the above is a good method to prevent the booking of unvalidated purchase invoices, but accountants will still only be able to judge whether invoices can be admitted to the accounting based on validation, so the underlying procurement documents will still need to be attached to the purchase invoices, and the validation and coding of the purchase invoices will still need to be done as usual.

This means that the time savings achieved by automatically booking invoices will disappear like snow in the sun, so first booking the accounting entries to an intermediate file is not an effective way to prevent the booking of unvalidated purchase invoices.

Automatically posting e-Purchase invoices may seem at first glance like an effective, innovative way to achieve work savings in procurement administrations, but the savings are realized by skipping essential parts of the procurement administration, resulting in unverified invoices being posted in the customer's accounting system. As a result, automatically posting invoices is unsuitable to serve as a Motor for e-Invoicing adoption.

Nonetheless, the importance of a good e-Invoicing adoption Motor is very significant, as the following example shows: Suppose that automatically posting purchase invoices had been an acceptable Motor for e-Invoicing adoption, it could have led to up to 30% work savings in procurement administrations, and companies would have lined up to adopt e-Invoicing, but that didn’t happen.

And this doesn't imply that companies are unwilling or only willing to do something extra if they're richly rewarded, quite the opposite; Supporting e-Invoicing without a well-functioning adoption Engine would mean such an added burden of tasks for companies that the normal flow of their procurement administration could be at risk.

Companies were not lining up to adopt e-Invoicing; on the contrary, things remained so quiet that governments are now considering making e-Invoicing mandatory, as some countries, such as Belgium and Germany, have already done.

We anticipate the expectation that at some point it will become clear that Mandatory measures without a good adoption engine will not lead to the right results either, and a need will arise for a new engine to boost the adoption of e-Invoicing.

That is why we have developed the PDM Web App, which Digitizes and Automates Procurement Administrations, enabling them to be executed much more efficiently and thereby serve as the New Engine for the adoption of e-Invoicing.

Procurement Administrations are those administrations where the many tens of thousands of procurement documents, such as purchase orders, sales orders, order confirmations, waybills, delivery notes, and so on, exchanged between suppliers and customers are recorded, in order to initiate, monitor, and manage the mutual trade, and ultimately to be able to Validate the resulting Purchase Invoices and to be able to Create the Sales Invoices.

Procurement Administrations can turn into large, labor-intensive puzzles, especially when companies have hundreds or even thousands of pending purchase and sales orders, each of which can consist of three to four separate procurement documents, meaning companies have to really go all out to manage their procurement administration properly.

The Procurement Administration is the only part of business administrations, that have never been Digitized or Automated, and are therefore still managed in a very old-fashioned Paper way, which means the many tens of thousands of procurement documents have to be: printed, sorted, collected in folders, organized by number and alphabetically, and stored for many years in binders and archives. This implies that there is a huge Efficiency advantage to be gained in Digitizing and Automating these old-fashioned managed Procurement Administrations

So what could be more logical than to Digitize and Automate Procurement Administrations and use the huge Efficiency benefits that come from this as the New Engine to kickstart the adoption of e-Invoicing.

We have incorporated this vision into an improved Four-corner model, which we have called the “Procurement Document Model”, and show it below.



As you can see, the Procurement Document Model is clearly derived from the governments' Four-corner model, and we have added a large number of Procurement functions and a Database where all procurement documents are stored.

During the development of the Procurement Document Model, we took great care to ensure that the rules agreed upon with the authorities in the Covenant were not violated, so that the objective for which e-Invoicing via Peppol was established, namely, improving the enforcement of VAT legislation in accordance with European ViDA legislation, can be fully realized.

Please note that our PDM App is not a Billing App that can be used to create sales invoices, but an app where the Procurement Administration is managed digitally. Hence the name PDM, which stands for Procurement Document Manager, and how the app works is explained in more detail below;

To explain how the PDM functions, we break its functionality down into 2 parts, namely:
1. The Digitisation part and
2. The Managing part.

1. The Digitisation part is that part of the PDM App where the procurement documents are uploaded to the PDM App and subsequently stored in the PDM Database, whereby they are and will remain Digitised and Archived until you remove them from the database.
Digitizing procurement documents is an alternative to printing them, which implies that when using the PDM App, procurement documents NEVER AGAIN need to be printed on paper as was customary in the past, but Uploaded to the PDM App.

And regarding the documents uploaded to the PDM App, we can be brief: these are All conceivable Purchasing and Sales procurement documents exchanged between companies, From Quotation to Invoice, including UBL and PDF purchase and sales invoices, Photos, but also procurement documents that Are not exchanged via Peppol, but for example by email.

You can put the Uploading of documents to the PDM App into practice further down this page using Live exercises with the PDM App.

All procurement documents stored in the PDM database are kept there for many years, where they are easily traceable and accessible, without having to dig through dusty archives. Also procurement documents stored in the PDM database can never get lost, unlike what often happens in traditionally managed procurement records.

2. The Managing section of the App contains the digital functions required to conduct the procurement administration digitally, so not on paper, and these are the following:
A. Dossier Formation, All procurement documents uploaded to the PDM app are assigned by the PDM user to common folders of related documents. The PDM user creates the folders based on their own criteria, but for managing the procurement administration, it's convenient to do this based on Purchase and Sales Orders, just like it used to be with paper dossiers.
-B. Approval, Purchase invoices are submitted to staff members, in the role of Budget Holders, for approval through the PDM App.
During Approval, PurchaseSerialNumbers are assigned to Purchase Invoices, and they are linked to the Current Bookyear.
-C. Coding, After approval, the Purchase Invoices (and, if necessary, also the Sales Invoices) are coded by the PDM user for booking in the accounting system, based on the underlying documents in the dossier, and only after coding based on the underlying documents, invoices can be posted in the accounting system.

Unlike automatic invoice posting, when using the PDM App, invoices are only recorded in the accounting system after they have been validated and coded based on the underlying documents.

The time savings when using the PDM App don’t come from skipping essential procurement functions, but from the Digitization and Automation of procurement administration. The PDM App doesn’t change anything in the procurement administration itself.

How the automation functions work in practice can be seen by using the PDM App live from this website. Within the PDM App, there are detailed explanations of how each function should be used.

Within the Procurement Document Model, with every UBL invoice that is distributed, a PDF version of the same invoice is also sent along. This is done because UBL invoices are very suitable for visualizing VAT flows between companies, but for accountants to use them for bookkeeping, they are unsuitable. Of course, UBL invoices remain the legally valid invoices, while the PDF invoices only play a supporting role, so using PDF invoices in this way is not in conflict with the Covenant.

To ensure that the UBL and PDF invoices always remain inseparably linked within the PDM App, they are uploaded to the PDM App as an InvoicePair, and you can also try uploading them as an InvoicePair Live on this page, as an exercise in the PDM App.

The Enormous efficiency benefits achieved with the PDM App, which are necessary to function as a Engine for the adoption of e-Invoicing, are the result of the Digitisation and Automation of the Total Procurement Palette; thus, not only the Invoices, but All procurement documents, from Quotation to Invoice, regardless of whether they are distributed via the Peppol Network or by email. This yields a whole range of Efficiency, Cost, and even Environmental benefits, as listed below:

-A significant saving in time and personnel costs, because documents that aren't printed also don't involve related tasks such as printing, sorting, collecting, and storing the documents in folders and archives.
-No more paper and printer costs.
-Space savings since the cabinets and spaces where these documents were stored and archived no longer need to be used for that purpose.
-A Formidably lower environmental impact, because the many tens of thousands, and in many companies even hundreds of thousands, of procurement documents no longer need to be printed.

Thanks to all these efficiency benefits, the Procurement Document Model generates an extremely strong Engine, making the adoption of e-Invoicing via Peppol easy to launch.

We estimate that the use of the PDM App can lead to savings of up to 30 to 40 percent on the Procurement administration, including the processing of UBL invoices.

Extra efficiency benefits provided by the PDM App

Procurement dossiers can be tracked within the PDM App in just a few seconds by searching by name or date, which offers a huge efficiency advantage compared to the old-fashioned way of manually searching through paper folders, where it often takes many minutes to find the right folder.

Another feature that increases the efficiency of the PDM App is the Incomplete Dossiers overview. Incomplete Dossiers are dossiers to which no Purchase or Sales Invoice has yet been added. The “Incomplete Dossiers” overview can be used to detect Sales Orders Yet to be Invoiced, thereby reducing the chance of Forgotten Invoicing. This overview is also used to detect Purchase Invoices that are still to be received.

Journal entries created within the PDM App are digital in nature and can therefore potentially be automatically imported for posting by ERP Apps, which further increases the efficiency of the PDM App. Of course, this feature is only available when it is supported by the ERP Apps.

The fact that PDM is a WEB App also brings extra efficiency benefits, because certain tasks, like approving Purchase Invoices, can be done over the internet. This prevents bottlenecks in the procurement administration since employees who need to approve the Purchase Invoices don't have to be in the office.

However, others like accountants, administrative offices, auditors, and even tax inspectors, can also carry out their work through the internet using the PDM App.
Especially for Accountants, this is a huge breakthrough, because even though ERP applications have been usable via the web for many years, this group could still mostly only work from the office because the procurement documents they deal with frequently were not yet accessible online.

With the rise of digital photography, photos have become an increasingly important part of our daily lives, and this certainly applies to procurement administrations as well. For instance, the delivery or receipt of goods is often captured in photos, among other things to verify whether the delivery was handled correctly. How efficient is it, then, that photos can be uploaded to the PDM App just like procurement documents and assigned to dossiers?

We would like to advise any government considering making e-Invoicing mandatory to first take a look at our website, to probably come to the conclusion that mandates are not necessary, because PDM leads to very large efficiency improvements and cost savings for companies, while implicitly supporting e-Invoicing.

Live use of the PDM App from this website

If the PDM app seems too good to be true, we want to remove any doubts by giving you the opportunity to use and review our PDM App LIVE from this website.

And to help you with your first live use of the PDM App, we go through two practical exercises below that you can perform live on this website, in the PDM App.

- The first exercise shows how UBL invoices are supported by the PDM App and how UBL invoices can be displayed within the PDM App. If you want to do this exercise, you can do it as follows:
Click on: "PDM App" at the very top left of this page’s menu and then click on "Login" on the right side of the page to log in to the PDM App. You will then land on a page in the PDM App that displays a list of uploaded documents.
You can now view any document on this list in PDF or UBL with just one click of the corresponding button.

- In the second exercise, we’ll show you how to upload a UBL/PDF Invoice Pair to the PDM App:
To do this, click on "Upload UBL+PDF Docs." in the left menu and then click on “choose files” on the right, select 1 UBL file and 1 PDF file, and then click "Open" to upload the files to the PDM App.

Next, click on "Assignable Documents" in the left menu, which will take you to the same page you visited earlier, but now also lists the documents you uploaded. You can also view these documents in UBL or PDF.

The "Upload UBL+PDF Docs" Menu Option in the PDM App is intended for uploading UBL+ PDF Invoicepairs to the PDM App.
For uploading other Single documents and Photos that are part of the procurement process, within the PDM App, you can use Menu Option: "Upload Single Docs", which works in the same way as "Upload UBL+PDF Docs", except that only 1 document is uploaded here.


If you would like to evaluate the PDM App Exclusive and Intensive, you can request a free 2-month trial with us at the bottom of this page. PDM is new in the e-Invoicing world and can trigger a huge e-Invoicing revolution, but also a massive Environmental and Sustainability revolution, so definitely a good reason to give it a try.

In the coming years, we will act as a lifeline for companies that run into trouble due to government-mandated e-Invoicing, but we're more than just a lifeline. Our PDM App can already, even without e-Invoicing mandates, take companies' procurement administrations to a much higher level by Digitalizing and Automating them, which can reduce the time and costs spent on procurement administrations by up to 40%.

Comments on the Covenant with the e-Invoicing stakeholders.

We believe that, given the fact that the e-Invoicing adoption Engine of the governments isn’t working, the relevant governments could better adjust the Covenant with the stakeholders, because until this happens, e-Invoicing stakeholders will continue to comply with the Covenant and keep developing products and services that haven’t worked in the past 15 years and won’t work in the future, resulting in the e-Invoicing project never taking off.

Evaluation of the PDM App

All the benefits described above, such as Increased efficiency, Space saving, and a Significantly lower environmental impact, also apply when companies start using the PDM App Without being forced to do so by governments.

We therefore enable companies and governments to start evaluating the PDM App now, so they can see for themselves the huge benefits that can be achieved with it and, moreover, be prepared for the possibly mandatory use of e-Invoicing.

The PDM App is a Web App that runs on external WebServers, so there’s no need to install any PDM Software on your systems to evaluate or use the PDM App.

The primary language of the PDM App is English, making it easy to use worldwide.

PDM is intuitive to use and moreover, every page within the PDM App provides an explanation of its function and its relationship to the other pages, and should there be a need for further explanation, we are of course willing to provide it.

The free trial comes with no obligations; you can stop at any time, but if you decide to continue after 2 months, you simply pick up from where you left off during the trial period.

All you need to do now is request a Trial, after which you will receive a Link from us, which you just need to click to start the evaluation of the PDM App.