Sending e-invoices to customers

Once your business is set up for e-invoicing, sending an e-invoice is almost identical to sending one by email — you just pick a different tab in the send panel. This article covers the send side. For the one-time setup (identity verification, representation rights, country prerequisites), see Setting up e-invoicing.

Sending an e-invoice

1. Open the invoice.
2. Click Send invoice. The send panel opens.
3. Switch to the E-invoice tab at the top of the panel.
4. Click Send e-invoice.

If the invoice is still a draft, the button reads Complete & send e-invoice — confirming the invoice and sending happens in one step.

Sliptree picks the right delivery network automatically: e-invoices to Estonian recipients go through the Estonian operator network; e-invoices to recipients elsewhere go through the Peppol network. You don't need to choose.

Unlike an email, there is no cover message or subject to write — an e-invoice is a structured document that moves directly between accounting systems. The recipient's software opens it without any manual handling on their side.

For background on what e-invoices are and which standards Sliptree supports, see What are e-invoices?.

Troubleshooting

The E-invoice tab is only available when the business's country supports e-invoicing through Sliptree (currently Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) and the role allows sending e-invoices. If the tab is missing, check the country on the business profile and the role under Business settings → Members.

When the tab is present but sending is blocked, the panel names the reason. Common cases:

• E-invoicing isn't enabled yet — use the Set up e-invoicing button in the panel to run the guided setup.
• Customer is missing a registration number — e-invoices are routed by business identifier. Add the customer's registration number, save, and try again.
• Customer is not in a supported country — the panel names the supported countries when this happens.
• Customer does not accept e-invoices — for Estonian customers, Sliptree checks the business registry. When the customer is not registered as an e-invoice recipient, send by email instead (optionally attaching the XML — see below).
• The invoice has validation issues — the panel lists the specific problems (for example a missing due date); fix them and retry.

For customers outside Estonia there is no central register of who accepts e-invoices — delivery is attempted via Peppol, and a bounce surfaces in the Activity panel when the recipient is not reachable.

Tracking delivery

After Send e-invoice, the invoice's Activity panel records that the e-invoice was sent and through which network, the delivery confirmation when the network reports it, and any bounce or rejection from the receiving operator with the reason if one is provided. Most e-invoices are delivered within a couple of minutes.

When the customer can't receive an e-invoice

If e-invoice delivery isn't possible, you have two practical options:

1. Send by email instead. Switch back to the E-mail tab in the send panel and send as usual — see Sending invoices and estimates by email.
2. Send by email with the e-invoice XML attached. Some customers want the structured XML file for their accounting system even if their operator isn't connected. From the invoice's More actions menu, download either the Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 XML (international) or the Estonian e-invoice 1.2 XML (Estonian format), and attach it to the email yourself.

Note that for public-sector recipients in Estonia, a manually-emailed XML file does not count as a legal e-invoice — public bodies must be sent e-invoices through the operator network.