When you send an e-invoice to the Flemish government, you automatically receive a receipt confirmation through the Peppol network. This status message confirms that your invoice has been received correctly and is being processed.

The Flemish government uses Mercurius as its Peppol access point for receiving e-invoices. After receiving an invoice, Mercurius sends a status message back by email. This message is delivered to the email address specified in the invoice as the supplier's contact address.

Technical: Mercurius sends the receipt confirmation by email because the MLR message (Message Level Response) is not supported as standard via Peppol outside of Flanders. eConnect receives the email and forwards it to the contact address in your invoice.

The confirmation can arrive in two formats:

Both variants confirm the same thing: your invoice has been successfully received and is being processed by the receiving government institution. You don't need to take any further action.

Not all Belgian government organisations send a confirmation. The automatic receipt confirmation is specific to the Flemish government (via Mercurius). Invoices to the Belgian federal government or Walloon government institutions may follow a different process.

The email address to which the confirmation is sent comes from the AccountingSupplierParty/Contact/ElectronicMail field in the invoice XML. If this field is not filled in, eConnect automatically adds [email protected] so that rejected invoices and status messages still reach the right party and can be forwarded.

Make sure to include a current email address in your invoice if you want to receive the confirmations directly.

Want to learn more about e-invoicing in Belgium? Read the complete overview.

• E-invoicing in Belgium
• Belgian VAT and identifier formats
• Status messages via Peppol