PEPPOL-EN16931-R001 Business process identifier missing

A business process identifier is required. Programs that make XRechnung usually fill it in automatically.

What the rule says

Business process MUST be provided.

The rule's official wording (CEN / KoSIT). The German XRechnung rules are published in German.

Why it happens

The invoice has no business process identifier (BT-23), which XRechnung requires.

How to fix it

Set it to urn:fdc:peppol.eu:2017:poacc:billing:01:1.0. Software that makes XRechnung usually does this itself.

Applies to

XRechnung (taken over from the Peppol rules).

Check your invoice again Create an invoice that passes

More about PEPPOL-EN16931-R001

The business process identifier says in which business context the invoice is exchanged. XRechnung took the requirement over from Peppol, and in practice one value fits almost every invoice: urn:fdc:peppol.eu:2017:poacc:billing:01:1.0, which stands for "billing" in Peppol.

It sits right next to the specification identifier (BT-24) at the start of the file. Don't mix the two up: BT-24 names the rule set (XRechnung 3.0), BT-23 names the process (billing).

The fields involved

BT-23 Business process type: CII rsm:ExchangedDocumentContext/ram:BusinessProcessSpecifiedDocumentContextParameter/ram:ID; UBL cbc:ProfileID

Typical situations

A ZUGFeRD file was relabeled as XRechnung without adding the process identifier.
Hand-built XML started from an EN 16931 example, which doesn't need this field.

Example

Both identifiers at the start of an XRechnung (CII):

<rsm:ExchangedDocumentContext>
  <ram:BusinessProcessSpecifiedDocumentContextParameter>
    <ram:ID>urn:fdc:peppol.eu:2017:poacc:billing:01:1.0</ram:ID>
  </ram:BusinessProcessSpecifiedDocumentContextParameter>
  <ram:GuidelineSpecifiedDocumentContextParameter>
    <ram:ID>urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017#compliant#urn:xeinkauf.de:kosit:xrechnung_3.0</ram:ID>
  </ram:GuidelineSpecifiedDocumentContextParameter>
</rsm:ExchangedDocumentContext>