E-invoicing: an invoice your client's bookkeeping can read

What an e-invoice actually is

An e-invoice is not a PDF, and not a nicely formatted file either. It is a structured document — in practice an XML file following the UBL standard — in which every detail has its own place: invoice number, date, each line with quantity and rate, the VAT per band, your IBAN and the payment reference.

The difference is not the layout but the reader. A PDF passes a human; an e-invoice goes straight into your client's bookkeeping. That is also why standards exist for it: if everyone invents their own layout, the recipient still cannot do anything with it.

The standard that applies in the Netherlands is Peppol BIS Billing 3.0, with a Dutch profile called NLCIUS. Both build on the European norm EN 16931. When a client or a procurement portal asks for “an e-invoice”, this is almost always what they mean.

What Freeliq does with it today

Every invoice has a button next to the PDF one to download the e-invoice. You get an XML file to Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 with NLCIUS, built from the same invoice you already made. That works on every plan, including the free one.

If you want the file to travel along by itself, you set that client to e-invoice. The invoice email then carries the XML file alongside the PDF: same email, same recipient, but their bookkeeping can read it instead of retyping it. That choice sits with your contacts, and you manage those on every plan.

If the file cannot be produced — because details are missing, or because the invoice falls under the margin scheme — the email still goes out, but with a warning that no e-invoice was attached. Never silently a PDF only: you would think your client received something he did not.

And once an invoice has been sent as an e-invoice, a download returns the stored copy rather than a fresh rendering. That is the document your client received, and that is what the retention obligation covers.

And what is not there yet

Delivery over the Peppol network itself is not included. Peppol is a network you register on with an identifier, after which invoices arrive directly with the recipient without a mailbox in between. That needs a connected service provider, and Freeliq does not have that connection yet.

The code for it exists, behind a switch that is off, and it has never been run against a real connection. So we name no date and promise no availability: what is not there is not described here as nearly there.

What you have today is the file itself. That is enough for by far the most cases: a client asking for an e-invoice generally wants a valid UBL file his bookkeeping accepts — by email or through his own portal.

Belgium is the one in a hurry today

If you have Belgian business clients, this is not a story about the future. Since 1 January 2026 Belgium requires e-invoicing between businesses. A Belgian client is the one asking for it right now.

Freeliq derives the Peppol identifier from details you fill in anyway, and covers the Netherlands and Belgium: a Dutch chamber of commerce number, a Dutch VAT number or a Belgian enterprise number. Every other country has its own code and is refused rather than labelled as Dutch — a wrong code produces an invoice that arrives at the wrong party, or nowhere.

That identifier is deliberately not stored separately but derived each time. Otherwise your records hold two truths about the same detail, and they drift apart the moment someone edits one of them.

And the Netherlands?

There the picture is less definite than the headlines suggest. What is settled: the European ViDA rules make e-invoicing mandatory for cross-border B2B supplies within the EU from 1 July 2030.

For domestic invoices there is advice, not law. EY researched it for the Dutch ministry of finance and recommended a domestic B2B obligation from 1 January 2030, with Peppol as the infrastructure and an internet consultation in the fourth quarter of 2026.

And that same advice contains something you rarely read back: EY suggests considering an exemption for small businesses — among them those in the Dutch small-business scheme and those supplying almost exclusively to consumers. For part of the freelance population the obligation may never arrive at all.

So we do not sell this with a deadline. Whether you will have to, nobody knows today. What you can arrange is being ready: a client who asks for an e-invoice tomorrow gets one.

What has to be in it, and what cannot

An e-invoice is stricter than a PDF. What may be missing on paper gets rejected by a receiving bookkeeping system. Freeliq checks that up front and lists everything still missing in one go, rather than pointing you at a new field three times in a row. Required:

• Your company name, street and number, postcode and city.
• Your chamber of commerce number or your VAT number — without one of the two you have no Peppol identifier.
• A valid IBAN. An e-invoice carries your account number as structured data, not as a sentence at the bottom.
• The same details for your client, plus his registration or VAT number.
• For a credit note, the number of the invoice you are crediting; the Dutch rules require it.

One thing is not possible: an invoice under the margin scheme. Peppol BIS Billing has no category for it, and sending it as 0% would produce an incorrect invoice. Such an invoice goes as a PDF, and Freeliq says so.

And a detail that trips people up in practice: the VAT on the e-invoice is determined by exactly the same calculation as the total on your PDF. Two separate calculations can differ by a cent, and that is enough for a receiving bookkeeping system to reject an e-invoice.

Frequently asked questions

Is a PDF invoice an e-invoice?

No. A PDF is a picture of an invoice; an e-invoice is a structured file a bookkeeping system can read by itself. Sending a PDF by email does not make it electronic in this sense.

Do I need to do anything about this yet?

Only if a client asks — which mainly happens with governments, larger procurement organisations, and since early 2026 with Belgian business clients. For Dutch domestic invoices there is advice to the cabinet, not an obligation.

Is this in the free plan?

Downloading the e-invoice works on every invoice, on every plan — there is no limit on it. To attach it automatically you set that client to e-invoice, and that setting sits with your contacts — on the free plan too. There is no monthly cap on the number of sends.

Does Freeliq send over the Peppol network?

Not yet. The file exists, network delivery does not — that needs a connected service provider. We name no date for it while it has not been tested against a real connection. Today the e-invoice travels as an attachment to your invoice email, or you download it and deliver it wherever your client wants it.

What if my client cannot process an e-invoice?

Then nothing changes. The PDF is always in the same email; the e-invoice is an extra attachment. A client who does nothing with it notices nothing.