Belgian Developer Adds Peppol E-Invoicing to Open-Source Flask Time Tracker

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A Belgian developer has integrated Peppol e-invoicing support into TimeTracker, a self-hosted open-source time tracking and invoicing application built with Flask. The update was driven by a Belgian regulatory mandate requiring all B2B invoices to be exchanged as structured e-invoices over the Peppol network starting 1 January 2026, replacing PDF-based invoicing. The implementation follows the EN 16931 European standard and generates both UBL 2.1 XML for Peppol transmission and CII XML for the Factur-X hybrid PDF format. Rather than building a full certified Access Point, the developer opted for a lightweight HTTP adapter architecture that forwards UBL documents to a third-party certified Access Point chosen by the user. The post details the key standards involved, the architectural trade-offs made for a self-hosted context, and the more challenging aspects of the build process.

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