On July 18, 2026, Belgium’s Council of Ministers approved a preliminary draft law for near-real-time electronic reporting of certain mandatory invoice data. The proposed mechanism would be bilateral: both supplier and contracting party would report data to the administration. The same draft provides for abolishing the annual list of VAT-liable customers.
For a company running Odoo in Belgium, this is an important architecture signal, but not yet a configuration specification. The announcement concerns a preliminary draft. It sets neither a final effective date nor a complete technical schema or definitive data list. Those elements must emerge from the legislative process and implementing texts.
What changes—and what does not change today
Since January 1, 2026, in-scope Belgian B2B transactions have already required structured electronic invoices. Peppol BIS is the default format; another format compliant with the European standard can be used by agreement between the parties. A PDF alone is not a structured invoice.
The e-reporting plan adds a tax-administration destination to the data flow. It should not be confused with exchanging the invoice between supplier and customer. The government release says reporting would cover certain mandatory invoice data and be bilateral. It does not yet establish which statuses, time limits, corrections, or exceptions Odoo will have to manage.
Why Peppol prepares the ground without solving everything
Odoo 19 documentation states that Odoo acts as both access point and SMP for Peppol transactions. For Belgian localization, it specifies EAS 0208, the company registration number as endpoint, and BIS Billing 3.0 when checking a participant.
That structured base is valuable: identities, taxes, references, amounts, and related documents are carried as data rather than as a visual representation alone. Yet Peppol compliance and future tax reporting are not synonymous. A correctly transported invoice can still carry the wrong business data, an incorrect tax code, or an insufficient reference for a later control.
Underside analysis: design an audit trail, not a speculative connector
Our view is that building an integration now for an interface that has not been officially specified would be premature. Waiting for the final texts before cleaning the data would be equally risky. The sound investment is invoice-source quality and event traceability.
In Odoo, the project team should be able to link order, delivery or service, invoice, credit note, payment, and Peppol message. It should distinguish accounting date, issue date, transmission time, and processing statuses. Manual changes, resubmissions, and duplicates must remain auditable. This discipline already supports closing and VAT controls; it will also reduce effort once e-reporting specifications are published.
Checks for an Odoo project
- Verify the Belgian localization, company number, EAS 0208, and Peppol endpoint for each company.
- Test invoices and credit notes across sales, purchases, deposits, reverse charge, and the VAT schemes actually used.
- Retain the structured XML, a readable view, and transmission evidence for the applicable retention period.
- Document statuses, rejections, resubmissions, corrections, and ownership across accounting, IT, and the integrator.
- Avoid free-text fields when potentially reportable information can be structured and validated.
- Track official texts before budgeting custom development or announcing a compliance date.
This work complements an Odoo accounting review and controlled invoicing automation. A French-Belgian group should maintain two tracks: France is deploying its own approved-platform and e-reporting architecture, while Belgium is shaping its mechanism in a Peppol context.
Official sources
- Belgian Council of Ministers — preliminary draft on electronic reporting, July 18, 2026.
- FPS Finance — official electronic invoicing FAQ.
- Odoo 19 documentation — Belgian localization and Peppol configuration.
- Odoo 19 documentation — electronic invoicing and Peppol.
Underside helps Belgian organisations audit invoicing data, configure Peppol, and prepare Odoo regulatory changes against the official specifications available at each stage.