DE-R-015

Explanation

When seller and buyer are both located in Germany, PEPPOL applies the German XRechnung requirements: the invoice needs a buyer reference, a field traditional VAT law doesn't have, which is why it often causes confusion. The buyer's system uses it to route the invoice to the right place (a department, a purchase order, an approval workflow). Public-sector buyers use their Leitweg-ID (the German routing ID); in B2B any identifier the buyer recognises works, such as an order, customer or project number.

How to fix

Ask the seller for a corrected invoice that states the buyer's reference, for a public-sector buyer its Leitweg-ID. If the buyer has no reference of its own, an agreed value such as the seller's order number is enough, not a placeholder the buyer won't recognise.