Readiness Assessment

A clear picture of where you stand on e-invoicing. Gap analysis, scorecard, cost band, and an executive readout you can take to the board.

Good fit

Who this is for

  • Finance and IT leadership teams that need clarity before committing budget to an e-invoicing programme.
  • Mid-market and enterprise companies with multiple ERPs, entities, or country mandates.
  • CFOs and controllers who need a board-ready view of mandate exposure and programme cost.
  • Teams that have been debating scope internally for months without converging.
Not a fit

Who it isn't for

  • Single-entity businesses on a modern cloud ERP that already supports Peppol natively.
  • Companies that have already scoped their programme and need execution only (see Implementation).
  • Teams looking for a free quick scan. This is a structured, fixed-price engagement.
Deliverables

What you get

01

Peppol Readiness Scan

Automated scan of your customer and supplier base against the Peppol network. Shows who is reachable today and where the gaps are.

02

Gap analysis

ERP-by-ERP and entity-by-entity analysis of format compliance, integration readiness, and process gaps against applicable mandates.

03

Readiness Scorecard

Structured scorecard across 6-8 dimensions. ERP, formats, supplier reachability, customer coverage, tax/regulatory, governance, change-readiness, programme cost band. Tier badge plus dimension scores with commentary.

04

Programme cost band

Range-bound estimate of total programme cost. Clear enough to unlock budget conversations, honest enough to not overpromise.

05

Executive readout

One-hour session with your leadership team. Findings, recommendations, and a prioritised next-step roadmap. No slide deck theatre.

Anonymised customer profile. Names and figures changed. Company details available on request under NDA.

Case study

Mid-market wholesale distributor

Client profile
Type
Wholesale distributor
Entities
9 across BE/NL/FR
ERP landscape
SAP ECC + 2 legacy
Volume
~3,000 invoices/month
Buyer: CFO + IT director|Peppol status: not started|Internal debate: 4 months

The situation

A mid-market Belgian wholesale distributor operates 9 entities across Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. The group runs SAP ECC for its core Belgian operations and two legacy ERPs for the Dutch and French entities. Monthly outbound invoice volume sits around 3,000 invoices. The Belgian e-invoicing mandate is live. The group has not started its Peppol transition.

The CFO and IT director share ownership of the initiative. Finance carries the mandate risk. IT carries the integration backlog. Neither team has a clear view of programme scope, cost, or timeline. Internal debate has been running for four months without convergence.

What a Readiness Assessment covers for this profile

In a Readiness Assessment for this profile we would run a gap analysis across all three ERP environments, map invoice output against Peppol BIS 3.0 and the applicable country profiles (Belgian, Dutch, French), and scan the full customer and supplier base against the live Peppol network.

The Peppol Readiness Scan would reveal the actual state of electronic reachability. In profiles like this, the supplier list is typically spread across 4 or more systems with no single consolidated view. Customer Peppol coverage is often worse than internal estimates suggest, because finance teams assume their largest customers are ready when many have not yet registered.

We would score each dimension independently. ERP integration complexity, format compliance gaps, supplier and customer reachability, tax and regulatory alignment for each country, internal governance maturity, and organisational change readiness all factor into the overall tier and the programme cost band.

What commonly goes sideways

For a profile like this, the most common risks we would surface in the assessment include:

Data fragmentation

Supplier data spread across 4+ systems with no consolidation. Reachability analysis impossible without a dedicated extraction and deduplication phase.

Coverage gap

Customer Peppol coverage significantly worse than internal estimates. Finance assumes the top 50 are ready. The scan often shows only 30-40% are actually registered.

Hidden middleware cost

Legacy ERPs that cannot produce valid UBL without a middleware layer, adding cost and timeline that nobody budgeted for.

Governance gap

No single programme owner across entities. The CFO sponsors but nobody owns delivery across all 9 entities day-to-day.

The executive readout

In the executive readout we would present the scorecard to the CFO, IT director, and any additional stakeholders. The session walks through each dimension score, highlights the critical gaps, and provides a prioritised roadmap with dependency mapping. The leadership team leaves with a clear decision framework: proceed to implementation, remediate specific gaps first, or phase the rollout by entity.

Indicative outcomes
€80k–€150k

mandate-exposure cost avoided

Based on Belgian penalty schedule: €50–€250 per non-compliant invoice under Belgian law of 10 November 2024 and EU ViDA penalty framework proposals.

3–4 weeks

programme scope locked

vs. 3-6 months of internal debate without external assessment

1 + 1 FTE

finance + IT freed from scoping

Assessment replaces months of internal research and vendor conversations

Sample deliverable
Sample artefact

Peppol Readiness Scorecard

Client: ████████ Group NV

58
/100
Tier B — Conditional readiness
ERP integration62

SAP ECC maps to Peppol BIS 3.0 with moderate effort. Two legacy ERPs require ██████ bridging.

Format compliance38

Current PDF invoices lack mandatory UBL fields. ██████ tax line mapping missing for cross-border.

Supplier reachability55

Supplier list spread across 4 systems. Estimated ██% Peppol-reachable today. Consolidation needed.

Customer Peppol coverage41

Only ██% of top-200 customers confirmed Peppol-ready. Worse than internal estimate of ██%.

Tax & regulatory78

BE mandate compliance path clear. NL/FR entities need ██████ alignment for local profiles.

Governance52

No single owner across 9 entities. Programme sponsor identified but RACI not yet ██████.

Change readiness65

Finance team receptive. IT backlog creates ██████ risk for Q█ delivery timeline.

Programme cost band

Estimated total programme cost: €██k–€██k across 9 entities. Scope-dependent.

Scores reflect assessment at engagement start. Redacted fields (██) contain client-specific data available under NDA.

Process

How we run it

1

Kickoff and scoping

Week 1

Align on entity scope, ERP landscape, country mandates, and stakeholder map. Define data access requirements.

2

Data collection

Week 1–2

Extract customer and supplier lists, invoice samples, ERP configuration exports, and current process documentation.

3

Peppol Readiness Scan

Week 2

Run automated scan of customer and supplier bases against the live Peppol network. Flag coverage gaps and reachability issues.

4

Gap analysis and scoring

Week 2–3

Analyse ERP integration paths, format compliance, tax/regulatory alignment, governance maturity, and change readiness. Score each dimension.

5

Cost band and roadmap

Week 3

Model programme cost ranges based on scope findings. Build a prioritised implementation roadmap with dependency mapping.

6

Executive readout

Week 3–4

Present findings to leadership. Walk through the scorecard, cost band, and recommended next steps. Answer questions live.

Investment

Format and pricing

From €12,000

Fixed scope. Fixed price. Final price depends on entity count and country mix.

Related packages

Often followed by

Implementation

End-to-end pipeline setup. Peppol registration, format mapping, ERP integration, test cycles, and supervised go-live.

Implementation

Often comes with

UBL/XML Validation

Bring invoice output into compliance with Peppol BIS 3.0 and EN16931, including country profiles.

UBL/XML Validation
Related reading
FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Do you need access to our ERP?
Read-only access to configuration and sample data speeds things up, but we can work from exports and documentation if direct access is not feasible. We agree on data access during the kickoff call.
Can the scan run without contacting our customers or suppliers?
Yes. The Peppol Readiness Scan queries the public Peppol network directory. No outbound communication goes to your customers or suppliers. They will not know you are scanning.
What if our supplier list is in 4 different systems?
That is common. We consolidate and deduplicate as part of the data collection phase. The messier the source data, the more valuable the output.
How is this different from an ERP vendor assessment?
An ERP vendor assessment focuses on their own product capabilities. Ours is vendor-neutral and covers the full landscape: all ERPs, all entities, all country mandates, and the organisational readiness that no software vendor will assess.
How long does the assessment take?
Typically 3 to 4 weeks from kickoff to executive readout. The timeline depends on the number of entities, the complexity of the ERP landscape, and how quickly data access is granted. We confirm the schedule during the kickoff call.
What happens after the readout?
You have a scorecard and roadmap you can act on independently. Many clients follow with an Implementation engagement, but there is no obligation. The assessment stands on its own.
Discovery call

Discuss on a discovery call

30 minutes with a co-founder or senior e-invoicing expert. You leave the call with a clear next step. Tailored proposal in your inbox within 48 hours.

Vendor-neutral. No obligation to switch platforms.

E-invoicing Readiness Assessment | Peppol Gap Analysis | e-invoice.be