Attestwire › Rule reference › BR-01

BR-01 An invoice must state its specification identifier

noun · EN 16931 · fatal · BT-24

the line that says which rules the invoice follows.

The invoice file does not say which specification it follows. That identifier, field BT-24, is how a receiver knows whether to judge the document as plain EN 16931, as XRechnung or as Peppol, so a file without it has nothing to be routed or validated against.

Business term

BT-24 — Specification identifier

Severity

fatal

The fix

Write the identifier your receiver expects into BT-24: urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017 for core EN 16931, or the XRechnung or Peppol value. If you generate the XML with this library, choose the profile and the generator writes BT-24 for you.

What the rule requires

In UBL the specification identifier is cbc:CustomizationID; in CII it is the ID inside GuidelineSpecifiedDocumentContextParameter. For core EN 16931 the value is urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017. XRechnung and Peppol each have their own longer value that starts with it.

This rule fires when the input records that a document stated no BT-24, which is what parseUbl and parseCiiInvoice do for a file without it. An invoice you build and generate with this library always carries BT-24, because the generator writes it from profile.

When the file states none, the library validates it against core EN 16931 as a fallback and says so in the finding. The xpath in the finding is the UBL location, cbc:CustomizationID; in CII the same field is the ID of GuidelineSpecifiedDocumentContextParameter.

An older build of @attestwire/en16931 used the id BR-01 for a missing invoice number, which is a different rule. If that is the error you have, the rule you want is BR-02.

An Invoice shall have a Specification identifier (BT-24).

Why it exists

The same XML can be a valid EN 16931 invoice and an invalid XRechnung, because XRechnung adds rules on top. A receiver reads BT-24 first to decide which set of rules to run, so a document that does not state it cannot be checked the way its sender meant.

What the library returns

The full error returned by @attestwire/en16931. It includes the rule ID, affected field and suggested correction. Developers can use this object in their application:

{
  "rule": "BR-01",
  "field": "BT-24",
  "severity": "fatal",
  "message": "This document has no specification identifier (BT-24: cbc:CustomizationID in UBL, the GuidelineSpecifiedDocumentContextParameter ID in CII). It is what names the rules the invoice follows, EN 16931 core, XRechnung or Peppol, and a receiver routes and validates on it. It was validated here against the core EN 16931 profile as a fallback.",
  "fix": "State BT-24, e.g. \"urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017\" for core EN 16931, or the XRechnung or Peppol identifier your receiver expects.",
  "xpath": "/ubl:Invoice/cbc:CustomizationID",
  "docsUrl": "https://attestwire.com/rules/BR-01"
}

xpath is always a UBL path. On a CII invoice, look for the matching CII field instead.

See also: BR-02 — an invoice must have an invoice number.