Peppol Despatch Advice Automation: Guide and API

What is a Peppol despatch advice?

A Peppol despatch advice is the electronic message a supplier sends a buyer when goods leave, saying what was shipped, against which order and order lines, in what quantities and when. It is a UBL 2.1 DespatchAdvice exchanged under Peppol BIS Despatch Advice, a commercial document buyers request, not a tax one.

The buyer uses it to prepare for the delivery and to book the goods in against the order, before the invoice arrives. That makes it the middle term of three-way matching: order, receipt, invoice. The invoice can then point back to it through business term IBT-016.

For a supplier in Belgium, the B2B e-invoicing mandate that has applied since 1 January 2026 reaches invoices and credit notes. The despatch advice travels over the same Peppol connection, and a Belgian party in it is addressed the same way, by its KBO/BCE enterprise number under scheme 0208. Our Belgium e-invoicing page covers the mandate itself.

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Where the despatch advice sits

Peppol carries the whole post-award conversation, not only the invoice. Tax mandates normally reach the last two documents; the earlier ones are driven by what your trading partner requires.

Who asks for it

Large buyers, retailers and public bodies — parties receiving goods at volume, who need to book a delivery before the invoice arrives.

Why it breaks automation

Three-way matching needs order, receipt and invoice. Without a despatch advice the middle term is manual, and the invoice waits.

Routing is capability-based

You can only receive one if the document type is published in your SMP entry. Senders will not route what you have not declared.

Which fields does a Peppol despatch advice require?

Seven elements are mandatory: the specification and process identifiers, a document number, an issue date, the despatch party, the consignee, and at least one despatch line. Each line must carry the delivered quantity, the order line it fulfils, and the item.

The table follows the syntax OpenPeppol publishes as Peppol BIS Despatch Advice (transaction T16). The specification is now at version 3.1, and its identifiers still end in :3, so a document written to 3.0 travels under the same document type.

Element (UBL)	What it must say
`cbc:CustomizationID`	Must start with `urn:fdc:peppol.eu:poacc:trns:despatch_advice:3`
`cbc:ProfileID`	Exactly `urn:fdc:peppol.eu:poacc:bis:despatch_advice:3`, a fixed value
`cbc:ID`, `cbc:IssueDate`	The despatch advice number, and the issue date as YYYY-MM-DD
`cac:DespatchSupplierParty`	Who ships: an electronic address (`cbc:EndpointID` with its `schemeID`) and a registered name
`cac:DeliveryCustomerParty`	The consignee, who takes possession: the same two items
`cac:DespatchLine` (one or more)	A line number, `cbc:DeliveredQuantity` with a `unitCode`, `cac:OrderLineReference/cbc:LineID`, and `cac:Item` with a name and a seller's or standard identifier

Optional, but where most of the operational value sits: the order reference in the header, the buyer and seller where they differ from consignee and despatch party, the shipment (consignment, carrier, gross weight, estimated delivery period, actual despatch date), transport handling units identified by SSCC, and per-item lot numbers, serial numbers, expiry and best-before dates.

How does a despatch advice reference the order?

When every line comes from one purchase order, the order number goes once in the header, in cac:OrderReference/cbc:ID. When the lines come from several orders, the header carries no order reference, and each line names its own order inside cac:OrderLineReference.

The order line number is required on every line either way. Where no order line exists, the specification asks for the value NA. The same placeholder applies to cac:Shipment/cbc:ID when you send shipment detail but have no shipment number.

How are partial deliveries shown?

Through two quantities on the line. cbc:DeliveredQuantity is what is in this consignment. cbc:OutstandingQuantity is what will follow in a later despatch. Anything ordered that is in neither will not be delivered.

So 10 ordered, 6 shipped and 4 to follow is outstanding 4. Ten ordered, 6 shipped and nothing more is outstanding 0, with a reason such as “Out of stock”. One order can be covered by several despatch advices.

Despatch advice, receiving advice, invoice

These three are routinely confused. The distinction is simply who is speaking, and about what.

Document	Sent by	Says	Invoice reference
Despatch advice	Supplier	“This is what I shipped”	`IBT-016`
Receiving advice	Buyer	“This is what arrived”	`IBT-015`
Invoice	Supplier	“This is what you owe”	—

Both references are optional. Where a jurisdiction's rules mention them they constrain rather than require — Oman's PINT OM Schematron, for instance, asserts only that each may occur at most once.

How do you automate despatch advice?

Your ERP or warehouse system emits a despatch advice as goods leave, it is mapped to a UBL 2.1 DespatchAdvice, and a certified Access Point routes it to the buyer. The receiver must publish that document type in its SMP entry first, or nothing routes.

In practice that is three pieces of work: have the receiving capability registered in the SMP entry of whoever is to receive the documents, map your shipment record to the fields listed above, and post the result to the API call shown below. The transport does not change — it is the same AS4 connection your invoices already use.

Which validation rules does a despatch advice fail?

Usually the identifiers, the order line reference, the quantity's unit code, or an element the data model does not allow. All of them are fatal: the document is rejected, not delivered with a warning.

OpenPeppol publishes two rule sets for the transaction: basic rules generated from the syntax, and business rules. We have no failure statistics for despatch advices. The list below is our reading of which rules a document mapped from an ERP or warehouse record is most likely to break.

Rule	What it checks	Usual cause and fix
`PEPPOL-T16-B00301` `PEPPOL-T16-R011`	ProfileID must be `urn:fdc:peppol.eu:poacc:bis:despatch_advice:3`; CustomizationID must start with `urn:fdc:peppol.eu:poacc:trns:despatch_advice:3`	A header copied from an invoice template still carries billing values. Set both from the table above.
`PEPPOL-T16-B18003` `PEPPOL-T16-B18801`	Each line must have `cac:OrderLineReference`, and it must have a `cbc:LineID`	The warehouse system knows the order but not the order line. Send `NA` as the line ID.
`PEPPOL-T16-B18002` `PEPPOL-T16-B11901` `PEPPOL-T16-R006`	Each line must have a delivered quantity, with a `unitCode` from UN/ECE Recommendation 20 or 21, and it must not be negative	Internal units such as “PCS” or “BOX” are not on the code list. Map them to codes such as `EA` or `KGM`.
`PEPPOL-T16-R003` `PEPPOL-T16-R004`	Each item must have a name, and either a seller's item identifier or a standard identifier such as a GTIN	Lines built from free-text order lines have neither. Send your own article number as the seller's identifier.
`PEPPOL-T16-B02101` `PEPPOL-T16-B02102`	Every `cbc:EndpointID` needs a `schemeID` from the Electronic Address Scheme list	The scheme is left off, or a VAT number is sent without one. For a Belgian party it is normally `0208`.
`PEPPOL-T16-B00802` `PEPPOL-T16-B00108`	The document must not contain elements outside the data model, or a schema location	A full UBL export carries elements Peppol does not allow. Map to the Peppol subset, and drop `xsi:schemaLocation`.

Two warnings are worth clearing too. PEPPOL-T16-R005 says each line should have a delivered quantity, and PEPPOL-T16-R007 asks for an outstanding reason wherever an outstanding quantity is given. Buyer, seller and originator parties are optional, but any you send must have a name or an identifier (R008 to R010). Invoices fail for different reasons, covered in invoice validation errors you can prevent.

How do you send and receive a despatch advice through GoRoute?

Through the same API call and AS4 connection your invoices use. Check that the buyer has published the despatch advice, then post the document with its document type and its process identifier. To receive them, the capability has to be published on your own SMP entry.

1. Check the receiver

The participant lookup returns the document types a receiver has actually published. If the despatch advice is not among them, nothing will route, however good the document is.

GET /api/v1/lookup/{scheme}/{identifier}

curl https://app.goroute.ai/peppol-api/api/v1/lookup/0088/7300010000001 \
  -H "X-API-Key: $GOROUTE_API_KEY"

2. Send the document

Name the process identifier. If you leave it out, the API fills in the invoice (BIS Billing) process, and the receiver's lookup will find nothing to deliver to. The example uses a GS1 location number; a Belgian receiver is usually 0208 and its enterprise number.

POST /api/v1/documents

curl -X POST https://app.goroute.ai/peppol-api/api/v1/documents \
  -H "X-API-Key: $GOROUTE_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "receiver_scheme": "0088",
    "receiver_id":     "7300010000001",
    "document_type": "urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:DespatchAdvice-2::DespatchAdvice##urn:fdc:peppol.eu:poacc:trns:despatch_advice:3::2.1",
    "process_id":    "urn:fdc:peppol.eu:poacc:bis:despatch_advice:3",
    "document":      "<DespatchAdvice xmlns=...>…</DespatchAdvice>"
  }'

3. Other despatch advice variants

GoRoute also carries two related documents. One is the Peppol Logistics advanced despatch advice (T120), which can be paired with a receipt advice. The other is Norway's EHF Despatch Advice 3.0. For both, the same POST /api/v1/documents call recognises the document, runs its official rules and sets the Peppol identifiers itself.

GET /api/v1/business-documents/types lists every such document with the identifiers it travels under. POST /api/v1/business-documents/validate checks one against its rules without sending it.

4. Receiving despatch advices

A despatch advice is never part of a default Peppol registration. Publishing one promises that your systems will take the document, and only you can say that. So the capability is switched on per participant. Tell us which variant your suppliers send, and we publish it on your SMP entry next to your invoice registration. The full request and response reference is in the API documentation, and Peppol API integration explains the integration as a whole. Also see the developer resources.

Frequently asked questions

What is a Peppol Despatch Advice?+

A Despatch Advice is the document a supplier sends to tell a buyer what has actually been shipped: which order it fulfils, which items are in the consignment, the quantities, and often the packaging and delivery detail. In wider logistics the same document is called an advance shipping notice, or ASN. On the Peppol network it is exchanged as a UBL 2.1 DespatchAdvice under the Peppol BIS Despatch Advice 3.0 profile.

Is a Despatch Advice mandatory under e-invoicing mandates?+

Generally no. Tax mandates concern the invoice and credit note, because those are the documents that carry the VAT position. A despatch advice is a commercial document between trading partners, so it is typically required by a buyer's procurement policy rather than by a tax authority. Large buyers, retailers and public bodies are the parties most likely to insist on one.

How does an invoice reference a despatch advice?+

Through business term IBT-016, the despatch advice reference, carried in UBL as cac:DespatchDocumentReference/cbc:ID. It is optional. Where jurisdictional rule sets mention it they constrain rather than require it: Oman's PINT OM Schematron, for example, asserts only that the despatch advice reference must occur at most once.

What is the difference between a Despatch Advice and a Receiving Advice?+

They travel in opposite directions. The supplier sends the despatch advice to say what was shipped; the buyer sends the receiving advice to confirm what was actually received, including any shortfall or damage. An invoice can reference either: the despatch advice through IBT-016 and the receiving advice through IBT-015.

What document type identifier does a Peppol Despatch Advice use?+

urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:DespatchAdvice-2::DespatchAdvice##urn:fdc:peppol.eu:poacc:trns:despatch_advice:3::2.1, with the transaction identifier urn:fdc:peppol.eu:poacc:trns:despatch_advice:3. A receiver must publish this document type in its SMP entry before senders can route one to it.

Which process identifier does a Peppol despatch advice use?+

urn:fdc:peppol.eu:poacc:bis:despatch_advice:3. The same value goes in the document's cbc:ProfileID, where rule PEPPOL-T16-B00301 requires it, and in the process identifier the message is sent under. An invoice's billing process will not do: the receiver publishes the despatch advice under this process, so a lookup for any other one finds nothing to deliver to.

What happens when a despatch advice covers only part of an order?+

Each line states the delivered quantity, and the outstanding quantity says how much will follow in a later despatch. Whatever is neither delivered nor outstanding will not be delivered at all: 10 ordered, 6 delivered and 4 to follow is outstanding 4; 10 ordered, 6 delivered and nothing more is outstanding 0. An outstanding reason should accompany it, and one order may be covered by several despatch advices.

Can I receive a Despatch Advice if I only registered for invoicing?+

No. Peppol routing is capability-based: a sender looks up what the receiver has published in the SMP, and will not send a document type that is not listed there. Receiving despatch advices requires that capability to be registered against your participant identifier, which is a configuration change rather than a new integration.

What does a Despatch Advice contain?+

At minimum: an identifier and issue date, the despatch party and the consignee, and one or more lines, each stating the item, the quantity delivered and the order line it fulfils. Most implementations also carry the order reference in the header, the shipment and consignment detail, packaging, and the expected delivery date, since that is the operational value of the document.

Does a Despatch Advice need to match the invoice exactly?+

Not necessarily, and assuming it must is a common source of failed automation. A despatch advice states what was shipped, which can legitimately differ from what was ordered and from what is ultimately invoiced — partial shipments, substitutions and back-orders are all normal. Buyers who reconcile order, despatch and invoice should expect and handle these differences rather than reject on mismatch.

Need to send or receive despatch advices?

We publish the capability on your SMP entry and carry the document over AS4 as a certified Access Point — the same path your invoices already take.

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Next: what Belgium's B2B mandate requires, or watch the tutorials and ERP walkthroughs.