Switch Peppol access point or provider without losing invoices

Switching Peppol access point means handing your Peppol registration, the network entry that tells your suppliers' software where to deliver your invoices, from one service provider to another, and usually moving your sending tool as well. Your Peppol ID does not change: for a Belgian business it stays 0208: plus the ten-digit enterprise number. Sending can move the same day, because it needs no registration. Receiving is the delicate part: only one provider can receive for your ID at a time, and OrdoGrid can take over a registration only once the old provider has removed it.

This playbook is for business owners, accountants and finance staff who move reception to OrdoGrid, leave OrdoGrid, or change the receiving provider while OrdoGrid keeps sending. A first registration is covered in Peppol registration in Belgium, and every OrdoGrid Peppol screen in Set up Peppol in OrdoGrid. Peppol screens are in French in every interface language; translations are in brackets.

What changes and what stays

For many small businesses the access point comes with the invoicing or accounting software, so switching access point means switching that software's Peppol service. OrdoGrid connects to Peppol through a certified access point: you configure no endpoint, certificate or key, only the Autorisation Peppol (Peppol authorisation) to send and the choice on Réception Peppol (Peppol reception) to receive.

How a registration moves on the network

A supplier's access point finds you through the Service Metadata Locator (SML), a DNS-based register that points to the publishing service (SMP) listing the documents you accept and the access point that receives them. "Each participant identifier is registered with one and only one SMP" (SML specification 1.3.0, §2.1). Two consequences:

• No double registration. A new provider cannot register your ID while the old registration exists: the SML refuses the new registration, so lookups never "split" between two providers for one ID.
• 0208 and 9925 are separate IDs. If one provider holds 0208:0123456749 and another holds the same company under 9925, the VAT-number scheme, each receives what is addressed to its ID. Every Belgian participant must be registered at least under 0208 (Belgian Peppol Authority requirements): move or remove every identifier together.

Migration key

A one-time code defined in the SML specification (§2.2): the current provider uses it to prepare the hand-over and the new provider to complete it, so your ID is never unregistered. It has 8 to 24 characters mixing upper- and lower-case letters, digits and symbols; treat it like a password.

Three more mechanics matter:

• Sending needs no registration. Your sending provider only looks up your customer, so you can send from a new tool while the old provider still receives for you. A registration left at an old provider keeps receiving your invoices, read or not.
• Late deliveries bounce rather than vanish. An access point that no longer serves an ID answers with an error (PEPPOL:NOT_SERVICED, Peppol AS4 profile §4.4), and while nobody is registered the lookup finds no one. Either way the supplier's software reports a failed delivery and the supplier must resend. What the old provider accepted before deregistration stays in its archive.
• Check who receives for you on lookup.peppol.org, the tool FPS Finance points to. It shows the ability to receive, not to send. (OpenPeppol has run the SML instead of the European Commission since 2026; this changes nothing for you.)

Background: SMP, SML and Peppol Directory: how Peppol finds a recipient.

Legal duties, our advice and how OrdoGrid behaves during a switch

What the law requires.

• A taxable person established in Belgium and identified there for VAT must be able to receive structured e-invoices, itself or through a third party (art. 53 §2bis VAT Code, as amended by the Law of 10 February 2026). Lacking the technical means to issue and receive them is fined €1,500 for a first infringement, €3,000 for a second and €5,000 for each further one; a repeat counts only if established at least three months after the previous fined infringement (Royal Decree of 8 July 2025; see penalties). No rule defines an acceptable switch window.
• Peppol publication of your registration counts as agreement to receive structured invoices, even where they are not compulsory (FPS Finance B2B FAQ, question 9).
• If you cannot receive, a supplier may issue its invoice on paper or as a PDF. That invoice is legally valid, and suppliers should not resend a structured version once you can receive (B2B FAQ, questions 7 and 8).
• Invoices sent and received must be kept for seven years from 1 January of the year after their date (art. 60 VAT Code, as amended by the Law of 18 December 2025), authentic, intact and legible throughout. FPS Finance strongly recommends keeping the original XML.

What we recommend. Keep the gap to minutes, on a weekday morning away from month-end, at a time agreed in writing, and keep the old account open, read-only, until D+30 (30 days after D, the switch day).

What OrdoGrid does. It receives only once no other provider is registered for your number under 0208 or 9925, then registers 0208: plus the ten digits of your VAT number for invoices, credit notes, Invoice Responses, legacy status messages (MLR) and self-billing documents. There is no test mode: activation acts on the real network.

Choose your scenario

Playbook A: move reception to OrdoGrid

1. Find out who holds your ID. Enter 0208: and your enterprise number on lookup.peppol.org and save a dated screenshot. In OrdoGrid, every Peppol page opens Autorisation Peppol until you sign, and that page already says "Votre entreprise est déjà enregistrée sur le réseau Peppol" (your company is already registered on Peppol). Ask your current provider which identifiers it registered.
2. Authorise OrdoGrid and start sending. On Autorisation Peppol, check Nom complet du signataire (signatory's full name), tick the confirmation and click Signer et confirmer l'autorisation (sign and confirm). Because OrdoGrid still finds you at the old provider, the declaration you sign covers sending only, and OrdoGrid does not ask you to sign again when you activate reception. OrdoGrid then opens Réception Peppol, which shows Déjà inscrit sur le réseau Peppol (already registered) with the ID found and, when known, an Access point : address whose domain often reveals the provider. Click Continuer en envoi seul (continue send-only): the Peppol page then shows Mode : Envoi seul. Stop sending from the old tool the same day.
3. Export the old archive. Download the XML and PDF of every document the old provider received and sent, plus customer Invoice Responses. Note unpaid supplier invoices and their due dates.
4. Agree the deregistration in writing. Fix the date and time, and list every identifier (0208: and any 9925 entry), every document type and the Peppol Directory entry. Activer la réception stays greyed out while OrdoGrid still finds you registered elsewhere.
5. Warn your regular suppliers with the notice below.
6. Activate as soon as the old provider confirms. Reload Réception Peppol or click Activer la réception on Peppol → Statut (status tab). When the page shows Pas encore trouvé sur le réseau Peppol (not yet found) or Référencé sur Peppol, access point non vérifié (listed on Peppol, access point not verified), click Activer la réception; OrdoGrid refuses activation while another provider still holds your ID. Statut then shows Envoi + réception, and Réception (Inbox) shows Enregistré (registered) with "Depuis le" (since) and the date.
7. Verify with a real document. Save a new dated lookup result. Ask a supplier to send its next invoice on Peppol: it appears in Peppol → Inbox marked NOUVEAU (new), fetched every hour or at once with Actualiser (refresh), and owners and administrators get an email alert.

Still Déjà inscrit after the confirmation? OrdoGrid shows it only when the network (the SML, or failing that its access point's lookup) still names another provider for one of your identifiers; a Peppol Directory entry left behind gives the grey Référencé sur Peppol, access point non vérifié instead, where you can activate. Ask the old provider to confirm that both identifiers are gone, reload after a few minutes, and contact OrdoGrid support if it persists.

Playbook B: leave OrdoGrid for another provider

1. Get the new provider ready first. It must register 0208: plus your enterprise number the moment you release reception in OrdoGrid, for invoices and credit notes at least, and for Invoice Responses if you want your customers' responses. OrdoGrid registers 0208 only, so nothing else needs removing on its side.
2. Download your documents. On Peppol → Inbox and Outbox, select the rows and download the ZIP, which holds an xml and a pdf folder. On the Factures (invoices) and Notes de Crédit (credit notes) lists, select the rows and click Download to get the PDFs as a ZIP. OrdoGrid has no full data export and is not a legal archive.
3. Agree the time with the new provider and send the supplier notice.
4. Release reception. An owner or administrator opens Peppol → Statut, clicks Libérer la réception (release reception), reads "La réception via notre access point sera arrêtée (deregister Peppol). L'envoi restera possible." (reception via our access point stops; sending remains possible) and clicks Confirmer. The mode becomes Envoi seul. If an error appears instead, nothing was released and Réception (Inbox) still shows Enregistré: retry or contact support.
5. Have the new provider register you at once, then check lookup.peppol.org and keep a dated screenshot.
6. Decide what OrdoGrid still does. You can keep sending from OrdoGrid in send-only mode; your customers' Invoice Responses then go to the new provider. If you stop, revoke integration keys under API keys with Revoke, and contact support to close the account: there is no in-app account deletion.

Playbook C: OrdoGrid sends while another provider receives

Nothing changes in OrdoGrid. It stays in Mode : Envoi seul, and Statut may show "Entreprise référencée sur Peppol auprès d'un autre prestataire" (company listed on Peppol with another provider) with your ID, adding that reception stays with that provider and sending from OrdoGrid works. Ask both receiving providers whether they support the migration key: if they do, the move has no gap. Otherwise apply steps 3 to 5 of Playbook A. Have the new provider register you as soon as the old one confirms the deregistration, then save a dated lookup.peppol.org result and check that a supplier's next invoice reaches the new provider's inbox.

Responses to invoices sent from OrdoGrid go to the receiving provider, not to OrdoGrid; the Belgian Peppol service providers' forum notes that splitting sending and receiving complicates Invoice Responses (forum page, September 2026). More: Peppol invoice responses.

Timeline: D-10 to D+30

FPS Finance says most Peppol invoices arrive within minutes to a couple of hours; raise delays beyond one working day with your software supplier.

Supplier notice template

Subject: our Peppol reception changes on [date] at [time]

From [date] at [time], a new provider receives our Peppol invoices. Our Peppol ID does not change: 0208:0123456749 (enterprise number 0123.456.749). Please keep sending invoices and credit notes on Peppol to this ID. If your software reports a delivery error between [time] and [time], resend the same invoice with the same number after [time], and please do not send it by email as well. Contact: [name, email address].

Because your ID does not change, this notice is not a legal requirement; it helps suppliers who invoice you around D-day.

Rollback plan

Worked example: Atelier Nord SRL moves its inbox to OrdoGrid

Atelier Nord SRL, a joinery workshop in Namur, has enterprise number 0123.456.749, VAT number BE 0123.456.749 and Peppol ID 0208:0123456749. Since 2025 a bookkeeping portal has received its invoices. Its manager, Marc Lemaire, wants sales, customer responses and purchase invoices in OrdoGrid.

The 20 minutes without a receiver cost one resend. The AP response of 28 August exists only in the portal export, so Marc files it with F-2026-0201.

Edge cases and common mistakes

Evidence to keep

What the law requires. The seven-year retention rule above also covers documents still held by the old provider. Archiving rules: invoice archiving in Belgium.

What OrdoGrid keeps. The authorisation (typed name, user account, VAT number and date), the reception date shown as "Depuis le", and, for each document sent on Peppol, the exact XML and PDF transmitted with their hashes. OrdoGrid is not a legal archive and offers no retention guarantee.

What we recommend:

1. Dated lookup.peppol.org screenshots at D-10, on D-day and at D+1, plus a screenshot of Peppol → Statut showing the mode and the "Depuis le" date.
2. The written deregistration agreement and the old provider's confirmation, with the time, and a screenshot of the Autorisation Peppol declaration before you sign.
3. The old provider's full export, XML and PDF, with Invoice Responses, in your own storage with a backup.
4. The supplier notice with its recipients, and a log of failed deliveries and resends in the switch window.

FAQ

Does switching access point change my Peppol ID?

No. A Belgian business keeps 0208 followed by its ten-digit enterprise number. Only the provider that receives for that ID changes, so suppliers can keep sending to the same ID.

Can two providers receive for my Peppol ID at the same time?

No. The SML registers each identifier with one publishing service only, so a second registration is refused. In practice a split happens only when 0208 and the VAT-number scheme 9925 sit at different providers, or when a provider deliberately redirects one document type, such as Invoice Responses, to another provider, which Belgian providers rarely do and set up by hand.

Can I send with OrdoGrid while another provider receives?

Yes. Sign the Autorisation Peppol and choose Continuer en envoi seul. Your customers' Invoice Responses then go to the provider that receives for you, not to OrdoGrid.

Can OrdoGrid take over my registration with a migration key?

No. OrdoGrid does not support the Peppol migration key, so your old provider must deregister you first. Agree an exact time and click Activer la réception as soon as it is confirmed.

What happens to invoices sent to me during the switch?

Invoices delivered before the deregistration stay with the old provider: export them. During the gap the supplier's software reports a failed delivery and the supplier resends the same invoice. A supplier may instead issue a PDF, which is a valid invoice and should not be sent again on Peppol.

Where do responses to invoices I sent before the switch go?

To whoever holds your registration on the day the customer sends the response. Responses received earlier stay with the old provider, so keep them with its export.

How long must I keep the documents from my old provider?

Seven years from 1 January of the year after the invoice date: an invoice dated 2026 must be kept until 31 December 2033. Export the XML and PDF before you close the old account.