Compliance Alert – Mandatory IRM and MLR starting September 2022

The Belgian Peppol Authority (BOSA) has now gone live with IRM and MLR capabilities for both Mercurius (B2G E-Invoicing Platform) and Hermes (B2B E-Invoicing Platform).

• IRM, which stands for Invoice Response Message, provides businesses level responses. Essentially, a recipient of an invoice will notify a sender of an invoice as to whether they accept it. This response will also identify specific rejection reasons.
• MLR, which stands for Message Level Response, provides a response occurring between service providers (C2, which is the sending service provider, and C3, the receiving service provider). This type of message is based on technical deviations or inconsistencies of the received e-invoice. It is referred to as “new” MLR.

Belgium currently has an MLR in place, which can be referred to as “old” MLR. The issue with Belgium’s old MLR is that it erroneously provides both business and technical responses. The introduction of IRM and “new” MLR is meant to correct this, increasing compliance of e-invoice exchanges across the Peppol Network in Belgium.

The transition from “old” MLR to “new” MLR and IRM will span 6 months, requiring use as of September 2022.

*Pagero strongly urges our customers to enable IRM capabilities. Pagero will contact customers well in advance to enable these capabilities. As “new” MLR is managed between sending and receiving service providers, Pagero is responsible for MLR and assures no interruptions to our customer’s operations or established arrangements with Pagero.

*The “old” MLR process is not relevant for existing Pagero customers in Belgium.