Issue Self-Billed Invoices in a Supplier's Name
Under a self-billing agreement, you issue the invoice instead of your supplier. Send Self-Billed Invoice takes a posted purchase invoice and puts it on the Peppol network as a document in the supplier's name — the supplier is the seller on it, and you are the buyer. It is not a copy of your purchase invoice being mailed to them.
That distinction matters for what appears on the wire: a self-billed document carries type 389 and the Self-Billing 3.0 profile, where an ordinary invoice carries 380.
Prerequisites
- Self-Billing Agreement switched on for the vendor. Nothing can be sent without it.
- A Peppol Endpoint on the vendor card — and the vendor must be registered to receive these documents, which is a separate registration from sending you invoices.
- A posted purchase invoice or posted purchase credit memo.
Send a self-billed document
- Open the Posted Purchase Invoice or Posted Purchase Credit Memo.
- Choose Send Self-Billed Invoice or Send Self-Billed Credit Note.
You can also select rows on the Posted Purchase Invoices or Posted Purchase Credit Memos list and use the same action there.
The confirmation is the same as on the sales side: a message id, with a warning after it if something was imperfect but not fatal.
Check before you post
The Purchase Invoice and Purchase Credit Memo pages carry a Peppol box with three lines:
- E-Invoice — whether the vendor's endpoint is usable, read from the vendor card.
- Self-Billing — Agreed: will be sent as a self-billed document (BT-3 389) in the supplier's name, or Not agreed: turn on Self-Billing Agreement on the vendor card to send anything for this vendor.
- Intercompany — whether the vendor is one of your own companies on the platform.
Without an agreement the box says Cannot be sent: the vendor has no self-billing agreement, and the send refuses with the reason spelled out:
Vendor number has no self-billing agreement. A self-billed document is only valid where the supplier has agreed that you issue invoices in their name, so turn on Self-Billing Agreement on the vendor card before sending.
The vendor must be able to receive, not just send
This is the most common surprise. A vendor who sends you Peppol invoices is not automatically able to receive a self-billed one — receiving those document types is a different registration on their side. The error names it explicitly:
Vendor number has no Peppol Endpoint. Set it on the vendor card. Note that the vendor must also be registered on the Peppol network for self-billing documents, which is a different registration from ordinary invoices - use Verify Recipient to check.
Use Verify Recipient on the vendor card, and Show Peppol Details to see which document types they have published.
Which number identifies the document
Self-Billed Document No. on E-Invoice Platform Setup decides what goes out as BT-1:
| Option | What to choose |
|---|---|
| Own Posted No. | The safe default. Under self-billing you assign the number, so your own posted number is a number you control. |
| Vendor Invoice No. | Safe for a vendor with a self-billing agreement, because Business Central generates that number from the number series dedicated to self-billed invoices rather than taking a typed value. |
For any vendor without an agreement, Vendor Invoice No. is whatever somebody typed, and Business Central does not check that it is unique. That is the case to avoid.
A credit memo follows the agreement as it stands today
Business Central records on a posted purchase invoice that it was self-billed, but there is no equivalent marker on a posted purchase credit memo. A credit note can therefore only be judged by the vendor's agreement at the moment you send it. Withdraw the agreement and you can no longer credit an invoice that went out under it. That is Business Central's data model, not a choice this app makes.