Identifying Australian entities registered on the Peppol network

About the Peppol Directory

The Peppol DirectoryExternal Link lists end users registered on the Peppol network and their receiving capabilities. The directory is administered by OpenPeppol.

Use the Peppol Directory to see if your trading partners are connected to the network and if they can receive eInvoices through Peppol.

Note that:

• Only receivers’ details are publishedExternal Link. – if an entity can only send, they may not be listed.
• Publishing receiver details to the Peppol Directory is required in Australia, but not all jurisdictions enforce this.

Every entity is registered using a unique participant identifier (Participant ID) with the following 3 components:   

• identifier scheme – 'iso6523-actorid-upis'
• International Code Designator (ICD) valueExternal Link      
  • '0151' is the ICD for the Australian business number (ABN) which is used by most Australian entities
  • some may use a different ICD especially if they also trade overseas
• unique identifier denoted by the ICD (a participant's actual ABN)      
  • for example, the Participant ID for the ATO is:
    'iso6523-actorid-upis::0151:51824753556'
    (identifier scheme::ICD value:unique identifier).

Before you start transacting

We recommend you always complete appropriate identity and ‘know your customer’ checks before transacting with any new trading partner, regardless of their registration status in the Peppol Directory.

Before you send an eInvoice to an entity listed in the directory, contact them to confirm that they are willing and able to transact with you using Peppol. You should also confirm the send and receipt of your initial eInvoices.

How to identify Australian entities registered in the Peppol Directory

There are a range of options for you to identify whether trading partners are registered on the Peppol directory, these include:

• using a free publicly available tool
• extracting data from the Peppol directory
• building your own API to extract data from the Peppol directory.

Using a free publicly available tool

There are a range of free to use and publicly available tools that you could use to identify if your trading partners are registered for eInvoicing.

A list of these tools is included below:

• Ademico - Peppol LookupExternal Link
• Payreq - Peppol LookupExternal Link
• eInvoicing.com Peppol lookupExternal Link
• Ozedi - Peppol lookupExternal Link

Extracting data from the Peppol directory

Follow the steps below to produce a list of entities registered in the Peppol Directory and connected to the Peppol network.

The list is filtered to display Australian businesses using an ABN as their Peppol ID ('0151' ICD).

This search will identify most entities on the Peppol network and help you identify trading partners located in Australia. The list does not include all Australian businesses as some may be registered using an ICD other than '0151' for ABNs. For example, '0209' for GS1 identification keys).

Step 1: Download and open the directory

• Go to Peppol.EU’s Peppol DirectoryExternal Link.
• In the grey footer, select Participant IDs CSV (comma-separated values) – a CSV file will download.
• Open the CSV file in Excel or a similar spreadsheet application.
• Most spreadsheets are limited to one million rows – the Peppol Directory may exceed this capacity (you may need to split it into multiple files to access all the data).
• Save the file as a Macro-Enabled Workbook for best performance.

Step 2: Separate the ABNs

The downloaded spreadsheet will contain a single column list of Participant IDs. You will need to split the identifier into its components to separate out the ABNs:

• Select column A and go to the Data ribbon.
• Select Text to Columns –the Convert Text to Columns Wizard will open.
• Ensure Delimited is checked then click Next.
• Check Other and type ‘:’ (a colon) in the box to the right then click Next.
• Click Finish.

The data will split into separate columns:

• Column C will show the type of identifier (ICD) and Column D will show registered participants' unique identifiers.
• Filter column C by ICD '0151' (the value may show as '151') to display only ABNs in column D.
• Save your list.

Compare Column D to your vendor data or against the ABRExternal Link data to identify your trading partners who are ready to receive eInvoices.

Note: Some eInvoicing providers offer a service option to help you identify your registered trading partners and onboard your trading partners to the eInvoicing channel.

Build an API to extract data from the Peppol directory

The directory can be automatically queried using a public REST API, further details on how to do this are available here Peppol Directory - REST API documentationExternal Link.

More Peppol functions

There are more resources and capabilities available to help you use the Peppol network.

You can access more information and functions in the Peppol Directory:

You can download the full BusinessCards CSV. This file is large and requires a powerful computer to process. The result includes all data fields associated with all entities in the Peppol Directory. You can apply specific filtering to identify a range of Peppol participants, such as all entities:   

• with an 'AU' country code (that is, all businesses located in Australia)
• in the Peppol network that can receive an 'AU' eInvoice (including entities outside of Australia).

Peppol practical participant searchExternal Link displays more information about individual entities, such as the access point they’re using.

Free dashboards such as ionite.netExternal Link provide high-level statistics like the number of registered entities in each country.

Some digital service providers offer Peppol statistics and data manipulation as a paid service.