Contact Info
Belgium
Which integrations does a Belgian company usually need around its ERP?
Most Belgian companies need their ERP or accounting package connected to CODA bank statements and SEPA payment and direct debit files, a Peppol access point for structured invoices, payroll journals from the social secretariat, and often a webshop, payment provider and logistics partner. As a remote integration consultant I design those flows, write the mappings, choose the method, plan monitoring and testing, and supervise whichever developers or partner carry out the build.
Last reviewed by Vikas Saroj
Belgian finance teams depend on a set of exchanges that are specific to the country: daily CODA statements from the bank, payment references customers are expected to quote, payroll figures arriving from the social secretariat, invoices moving over Peppol and an accounting firm that needs the ledger in good order. Each one is manageable alone. Problems start when they are set up by different people at different times and nobody owns the whole picture.
I work remotely with Belgian organizations to design those integrations: who owns each record, what each message contains, which method carries it, how failures are noticed and how everything is tested before it matters. Developers, an integration specialist or your implementation partner do the building; I write the specifications they build to and review what they deliver. Simple connector configuration I can sometimes take on myself.
I am independent of software publishers, access point providers and middleware vendors, and earn nothing from any of them.
What I Do
Each flow ends with a document your team can read and a builder can follow.
CODA statement import, matching rules based on structured references, SEPA supplier payments and direct debit collections, with returns and rejections routed back to the right person.
The route between your ERP and an access point for outgoing and incoming invoices and credit notes: identifiers, field mapping, attachments, status messages and what finance does when a document bounces.
A mapping from the social secretariat's journal to accounts, analytic codes and departments, with a control total and a sign-off by your accounting firm before anything posts.
Orders, stock, prices and status between the ERP and webshops, marketplaces and the CRM, with product texts in French, Dutch and German owned by one system rather than several.
Order, receipt, shipment and stock messages with a third-party warehouse or carrier, including partial deliveries, returns and a daily stock comparison that someone actually reviews.
A method choice per flow, review of the build against the specification, then alerts, retry limits and a runbook so the Belgian team can respond without calling the original developer.
How I Work
Draw every exchange as it is
List banks, partners and providers
Collect their format documents
Record manual steps and owners
Agree which system owns what
Define what builders deliver
Map fields and references
Choose the method per flow
Design errors and alerts
Write scenario test cases
Test with real partners, then hand over
Test with bank and provider files
Reconcile with the accounting firm
Plan cutover sequence
Hand over runbook and owners
Belgian banks deliver account statements in the CODA format, and most business accounting software can import them. Importing is the easy part. Whether receipts match their invoices automatically depends on decisions made elsewhere: whether your invoices carry a structured payment reference, whether customers actually use it, and what the ERP does when they do not.
The design work covers:
Outgoing payments follow the same discipline. SEPA files for supplier runs are generated in the ERP and approved in the bank, with the approval steps on both sides agreed so the integration does not bypass anyone's authority. Direct debit collections need mandate data held correctly and rejected collections returned to the right desk. I specify these flows with your treasury contact and test them using real files from each bank. The broader picture of my Belgian work is on the Belgium overview.
Belgian policy is pushing invoices between companies onto Peppol as structured data. The scope and dates of any obligation sit with your accountant or tax advisor. The integration question does not change with them: how outgoing invoices and credit notes are produced and sent, how incoming ones arrive and how both sides know what happened.
Some accounting packages and ERPs include an access point connection, others rely on a separate provider or a connector. I compare the realistic routes for your software on a few practical points:
Most failures here are data failures. A customer with a wrong enterprise number or a missing reference produces a rejected invoice regardless of the technology, which is why the cleanup of customer master data belongs in the same plan. CRM-side data rules are covered on my CRM consultant page for Belgium.
Belgian payroll is usually calculated by a social secretariat, which also handles declarations to the social security authorities. The ERP should not attempt any of that. What it needs is the payroll journal each period, posted to the right accounts with the right analytic split, and reconciled with the secretariat's summary.
I design the journal flow with your accounting firm. The mapping covers gross pay, employer contributions, withholding, net pay, meal voucher and other benefit costs and accruals, by department or project where you allocate costs that way. The secretariat's export options decide the transport, be it a file, a portal download or a connector, and I check what your provider actually offers. A control total and a review before posting keep payroll errors from spreading into management accounts.
The accounting firm is a stakeholder in other flows too. Many Belgian companies keep daily bookkeeping in-house while the firm prepares VAT returns, listings and annual accounts, often working in its own software. The integration design should state which data the firm receives, in what format and on what schedule, and who answers its questions. When a new ERP is on the way, these points become test cases in the approach described on my ERP implementation consultant page for Belgium.
Belgian companies selling online often face a product data problem before an order problem. Descriptions, names and attributes exist in French, Dutch and sometimes German or English, maintained in the webshop by one person, in the ERP by another and in a spreadsheet by a third. Every price or range change then has to be repeated in each place.
I start by agreeing ownership: items, stock and cost usually in the ERP, translations and marketing content in the webshop or a product information tool, prices by agreement. Then the flows are specified: products and prices published to channels, orders imported with customer, payment and delivery details, shipment confirmations returned, refunds handled through both the payment provider and the ledger. Payment providers collecting Bancontact, card and other methods settle net of fees, so each payout is split into receipts, fees and refunds for matching.
Where a third-party warehouse in Belgium or the Netherlands holds the stock, its message set defines the rest: order instructions, goods receipts, shipment confirmations, stock reports and returns. Differences between the warehouse report and the ERP are compared daily and assigned to an owner. Scenario tests run through the whole chain, from web order to bank receipt, before the channel goes live.
For each flow I recommend a method with the reasons written down. A native connector is preferable when it handles your real cases. Platforms in the style of Make, n8n or Zoho Flow are reasonable when several systems share the same records and you want one place to watch them. Custom API development suits volumes or logic that nothing standard handles, but creates code someone must maintain. File exchange remains the norm with many banks, secretariats and warehouses, and is acceptable when automated and checked.
Testing is organized by business scenario and involves the outside parties: a CODA file with mixed references, a Peppol invoice rejected for a missing identifier, a payroll journal with a correction, a web order shipped in two parts and refunded in one. The accounting firm reconciles a sample before sign-off.
After go-live, each integration needs a named owner in your organization, alerts that reach them, retry limits, a daily control and a runbook. I hand these over with the specifications and can review error patterns during the first months of live use. The general method is under system integration and ERP integration; for platform questions see my ERP consultant page for Belgium. Delivery is remote, with visits by arrangement.
Tell me about your business and current systems. I’ll suggest the most sensible first step.
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FAQ
Usually because the structured payment reference is missing from invoices, customers do not use it, or matching rules do not handle partial and combined payments. The import works; the rules around it do not. I review invoices, references and matching settings together and redesign them so most receipts match without intervention.
Not necessarily. Some systems include a connection, others work with a separate provider, so the two choices are linked. I compare the realistic combinations on data completeness, incoming invoice handling, rejection messages and support. Your accountant confirms which obligations apply and when, and the plan follows that.
That is a question for your payroll and HR advisors, and most Belgian companies keep payroll with a social secretariat. My work starts where the secretariat's output reaches the ledger: the journal mapping, analytic allocation, control totals and the review step before posting.
I design and oversee them. Your IT team, a freelance developer or the implementation partner writes the code, working from my specifications, and I review what they deliver and lead the testing. If an existing connector or a brief low-code flow does the job, I can configure it as part of my own work.
Every business is different. Share where you are today and what you want to fix, and I’ll tell you honestly whether and how I can help.
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