Identifying New Zealand entities registered on the eInvoicing (Peppol) network

About the Peppol Directory

The Peppol Directory is administered by OpenPeppol. This organisation governs the international Peppol network which is used for eInvoicing in New Zealand.

Peppol website(external link)

You can use this directory to look up if your trading partners are registered to receive eInvoices through the eInvoicing network.

Note, the Receivers PEPPOL ID listed in the directory, is the same as the business’s NZBN. However, only receivers’ details are published. If an entity can only send eInvoices, they may not be listed.

Introduction to Peppol(external link) — Peppol

How to identify New Zealand entities registered in the Peppol eInvoicing Directory

If you only have a few trading partners and have their NZBN then you can search using their NZBN. Simply enter the NZBN into the search bar of the Peppol directory.

Otherwise follow the steps below to produce a list of entities registered in the directory who are connected to the eInvoicing network. This list is filtered to display businesses registered to receive invoices following AU-NZ Peppol standard.

This simple search will identify most entities on the network and help you identify trading partners located in New Zealand.

This process is designed to be completed using Excel.

Step 1: Download the data

• Go to Peppol’s Peppol Directory.
• Search “AUNZ” in the search bar or click the link below:
  AUNZ Peppol Directory(external link) — Peppol
• This will provide a list of businesses who can receive invoices following the AU-NZ Peppol Invoice standard.
• Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the button in the bottom left to “Download results as XML”. A file will download.

Please note you will not have to view the XML, the data will be managed in Excel.

Step 2: Opening the data

In this step you will load the data into an Excel spreadsheet. Though this process may seem technical, it can be done in 12 easy steps.

• Open Excel (a new spreadsheet) and go to the section at the top of the page called “Data”.
• Depending on your version of Excel select the “New Query” or “Get Data” tool. We are using data from a file more specifically from an XML file which will be in your Downloads folder. Import this file.
• A new screen will open, you will need to “Edit” or “Transform” the data, click the button in the bottom right.
• Expand the “Business Card” column that provides information about your trading partners including their unique identifier (NZBN), business name, registration date and document types they can receive. To expand use the button at the top right of the “Business Card” Column to expand the information. You may want to uncheck “Use original column name as prefix”.
• Continue expanding the columns.

Business NZBN and name

The key information is the businesses NZBN and name, these are shown as Attribute:value and Attribute:name.

The Attribute:value also includes the prefix of the International Code Designator which for New Zealand is “0088”. To separate the NZBN (the unique business identifier) remove this prefix. You can use this formula =MID(A2,6,LEN(A2)), where A2 would be the Attribute:value.

Create two versions to make it easier

You may want to create one version with “doctypeid” expanded and one without as this creates a duplicate for every document type a business can receive. All the businesses included can receive invoices following the AU-NZ specifications and so the extra document types will be surplus information. If you expand this column by accident, you can always remove this step on the right-hand side of the tool.

• Filter the data under “Country Code” to select only NZ to separate your trading partners in New Zealand.
• Inspect the data, you can delete columns with excess information and change datatypes if necessary.
• Finally, click the close & load button in the top left. Your data is ready to use.

You now have a list of trading partners who can receive eInvoices in New Zealand, their NZBNs and business names.

Understanding the column labels

Attribute:scheme – identifier scheme (additional info)

Attribute:value – combination of the International Code Designator (ICD) and unique business identifier (NZBN). To separate the NZBN remove the “0088:” prefix.

Attribute:name – Business name

Attribute:language – language (additional info)

Regdate – Date of registration on the Peppol directory (additional info)

Attribute:countrycode – Country the business operates in (additional info)