How and Why to View a Peppol E-Invoice?
Tools
• UBL • PEPPOL • PEPPOL VIEWER • XML • ISO19845 • E-INVOICE •
Peppol XML e-invoices are increasingly common across Europe and beyond, but actually inspecting one is a different matter entirely. E-invoice XML files not designed for human eyes. If you open a raw Peppol XML file in a text editor you’ll be greeted by a wall of tags, namespaces, and encoded data that tells you very little. So how do you view Peppols properly? And more importantly, why would you ever need to do that?
Access https://kibervarnost.si/peppol-viewer/ to batch view Peppol invoices for free
What Is a Peppol E-Invoice, Anyway?
Peppol (Pan-European Public Procurement On-Line) is a standardised framework that allows businesses and government bodies to exchange electronic documents — primarily invoices — across borders and between different software systems. The most widely used format is Peppol BIS Billing 3.0, which is built on the UBL (Universal Business Language) or CII (Cross-Industry Invoice) XML standard.
The beauty of Peppol is interoperability. A supplier in Finland can send an invoice to a buyer in Italy, and both sides’ systems can process it automatically without any manual data entry. The data is structured, machine-readable, and standardised, but machine-readability comes at the cost of human-readability.
Why Would You Need to View a Peppol Invoice Manually?
There are more reasons than you might think:
Auditing and verification. Before approving payment, an accountant or finance manager may need to verify that the invoice data — line items, VAT breakdowns, payment details — matches what was agreed. Trusting the ERP to parse it correctly is not always enough, especially during an audit.
No ERP access. Not everyone who needs to review an invoice has access to the company’s accounting system. A consultant, an external auditor, a procurement officer working remotely — all of them might receive an XML file with no obvious way to read it.
Troubleshooting integrations. If you’re a developer or system integrator working on a Peppol implementation, you’ll frequently need to inspect the contents of individual XML files to verify that fields are populated correctly — Peppol participant IDs, buyer references, IBAN details, and so on.
Batch processing and reconciliation. At month-end, finance teams often need to tally up a batch of incoming invoices quickly. Going through them one by one in an ERP is slow. A consolidated view of totals across multiple invoices, grouped by currency, is far more efficient.
Onboarding and learning. If your organisation is transitioning to e-invoicing, being able to visually inspect invoices helps staff understand the format and builds confidence in the process.
The Problem with Most Viewing Solutions
The obvious answer — «just open it in your accounting software» — doesn’t always work. ERP systems are expensive, require logins, and are not universally accessible. Many online XML viewers are generic tools that display raw tag structures rather than presenting invoice data in a meaningful, human-readable way. And then there’s the privacy concern: uploading sensitive financial documents containing supplier details, IBANs, and business identifiers to a third-party server is a real risk, particularly under GDPR.
This is the gap that a purpose-built Peppol invoice viewer fills.
A Better Approach: Browser-Based, Privacy-First Viewing
There’s a free online tool — the Peppol Invoice Viewer (BIS 3.0) — that takes a fundamentally different approach. Rather than sending your files to a server for processing, everything happens locally in your browser using JavaScript only. Your invoice data never leaves your device and nothing is uploaded, stored, or transmitted anywhere.
This is not a minor detail because e-invoices contain genuinely sensitive information: company names, addresses, VAT numbers, Peppol participant identifiers, payment account details (IBAN/BIC), and itemised purchase data. Handling that locally rather than on a remote server is a meaningful privacy and compliance advantage, particularly for organisations operating under EU data protection expectations. The tool requires no registration, no login, and no vendor relationship. You simply open it and use it.
What the Peppol Viewer Actually Shows You
Once you load one or more XML files, the viewer extracts and presents the key invoice data in a clean, readable format:
- Invoice identifiers and issue dates — the basic reference data you need to match invoices to purchase orders
- Buyer and supplier party details — including Peppol endpoint IDs and contact information
- Buyer reference and order references — essential for matching invoices to internal purchase orders
- Line items — descriptions, quantities, unit prices, and VAT classification
- VAT breakdowns — a clear summary of tax by rate and category
- Totals — net, tax, and gross amounts
- Payment information — IBAN and BIC where included
Batch Viewing: The Real Time-Saver
Where Peppol Viewer becomes particularly valuable is when you’re dealing with multiple invoices at once. You can load a batch of XML files simultaneously and get a consolidated summary — totals grouped by currency, an overview of all invoices in the batch without opening each one individually.
For a finance team closing out a month, or an auditor reviewing a set of invoices from a specific supplier or time period, this is a significant practical advantage. You can also export the results: a readable TXT summary for documentation purposes, or a structured CSV file that drops straight into Excel or an accounting workflow.
The tool is useful for a broad range of people:
- Accountants and finance teams who receive Peppol invoices and need to verify or reconcile them without always going through the ERP
- Auditors who need to inspect invoice contents independently
- Developers and system integrators building or testing Peppol connections
- Procurement staff who need to match invoices to purchase orders quickly
- Small businesses that are legally required to work with e-invoices but don’t have sophisticated accounting software
E-Invoicing Is Becoming Mandatory in EU
Across Europe, e-invoicing mandates are expanding rapidly. Germany, France, Belgium, Romania, and others are rolling out requirements for B2B electronic invoicing, many of them based on the Peppol network. If your business operates across borders or works with public sector buyers, chances are you’re already receiving Peppol invoices — or you soon will be.
Understanding how to read and verify these documents is no longer a niche technical skill. It’s becoming a basic operational requirement. Having a reliable, private, free way to view them without depending on a single software vendor is a practical piece of financial infrastructure that every organisation handling e-invoices should have in their toolkit.
Need to edit a Peppol e-Invoice?
Access https://kibervarnost.si/peppol-editor/ to create a new Peppol invoice from an existing e-invoice
Privacy First
All of these tools are designed with privacy in mind. Processing happens entirely on the user’s computer using JavaScript, with no uploads, no server-side storage and no tracking. For accountants, auditors and consultants handling sensitive financial data, this local-only approach is not just convenient but increasingly necessary.
Unlike many online converters: * Invoices never leave your computer * No servers, no uploads * No analytics or tracking * Designed for handling sensitive financial and GDPR data * Aligned with strict EU privacy expectations * Completely free and always will be
This makes the tools suitable for auditors, accountants, consultants, and security-conscious organizations. E-invoicing with UBL and Peppol is no longer optional, it is core business infrastructure.
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