Group structures are common across the region: entities on different ERPs, or several instances of the same ERP, filing VAT under one shared Tax Registration Number. That single TRN maps to one Peppol participant ID and one ASP connection - which means routing becomes the central engineering problem.
Five entities on five different ERP systems, all filing under one shared TRN. Each entity's inbound invoices have to be identified and routed to its own, distinct ERP instance.
Three entities running the same ERP platform but as separate company codes or tenants - still requiring invoice-level routing to the correct company, not just the correct system.
All eight entities' inbound invoices arrive on one connection. If routing fails, an invoice lands in the wrong company's ledger - creating VAT reporting discrepancies and audit findings, not just a bit of manual rework.
| Layer | Signal used | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Primary key | Buyer Reference (cbc:BuyerReference) | When the supplier has populated it - the fastest, most reliable route. |
| 2. Cross-reference table | Supplier-to-division mapping | Falls back to a maintained table linking known suppliers to the entity they invoice. |
| 3. Pattern matching | PO number pattern | Where a PO reference exists, its numbering pattern can indicate the owning entity. |
| 4. Exception queue | Manual routing | Anything the first three layers can't resolve is queued for a human decision - never guessed. |
Never rely on a single key. PINT-AE doesn't mandate the Buyer Reference field, so suppliers can legitimately omit it. The cascade above is designed to degrade gracefully rather than fail outright - paired with a supplier onboarding push to get Buyer Reference populated at source, and a structured Under-Query response that pushes correction back to the supplier rather than absorbing the cost internally.
Before any invoice flows, we map your group's entity structure, ERP landscape, and the supplier relationships that cross entity lines. That mapping - not the API connection - is what determines how well the routing cascade performs on day one.
See the full inbound process →