PEPPOL-EN16931-R040: Allowance or charge amount does not match base amount…

StandardPeppol BIS Billing 3.0 (OpenPeppol)SeverityError: the invoice is rejectedSyntaxUBL, CIIApplies toInvoices and credit notes sent over the Peppol network (UBL) and, because XRechnung embeds the Peppol rule set, every XRechnung as well.

Official rule text

[PEPPOL-EN16931-R040] Allowance/charge amount must equal base amount * percentage/100 if base amount and percentage exists

Why this error occurs

When an allowance or charge states both a base amount and a percentage, the amount must equal base x percentage / 100, with a tolerance of 0.02. The rule checks cbc:Amount against cbc:BaseAmount and cbc:MultiplierFactorNumeric in cac:AllowanceCharge at document and line level (UBL), or ram:ActualAmount against ram:BasisAmount and ram:CalculationPercent in ram:SpecifiedTradeAllowanceCharge (CII). It fails when the percentage is written as a fraction (0.10 instead of 10), when the base amount refers to a different base than the one the amount was computed from, or when the amount was rounded differently.

How to fix it

Formula: Amount = round(BaseAmount x MultiplierFactorNumeric / 100, 2). Write the percentage as a number of percent (10 for 10 %). Set BaseAmount to the amount the discount was actually applied to (usually the sum of the affected lines) and compute Amount from it. If you cannot provide a consistent base, omit both cbc:BaseAmount and cbc:MultiplierFactorNumeric and give only cbc:Amount, which is always allowed.

Example (valid)

<cac:AllowanceCharge>
  <cbc:ChargeIndicator>false</cbc:ChargeIndicator>
  <cbc:AllowanceChargeReason>Discount</cbc:AllowanceChargeReason>
  <cbc:MultiplierFactorNumeric>10</cbc:MultiplierFactorNumeric>
  <cbc:Amount currencyID="EUR">25.00</cbc:Amount>
  <cbc:BaseAmount currencyID="EUR">250.00</cbc:BaseAmount>
  <cac:TaxCategory><cbc:ID>S</cbc:ID><cbc:Percent>19</cbc:Percent><cac:TaxScheme><cbc:ID>VAT</cbc:ID></cac:TaxScheme></cac:TaxCategory>
</cac:AllowanceCharge>

What the validator checks

Checked element (context):

UBL

ubl-invoice:Invoice/cac:AllowanceCharge | ubl-invoice:Invoice/cac:InvoiceLine/cac:AllowanceCharge | ubl-creditnote:CreditNote/cac:AllowanceCharge | ubl-creditnote:CreditNote/cac:CreditNoteLine/cac:AllowanceCharge

Test (XPath):

not(cbc:MultiplierFactorNumeric and cbc:BaseAmount) or u:slack(if (cbc:Amount) then
            cbc:Amount
          else
            0, (xs:decimal(cbc:BaseAmount) * xs:decimal(cbc:MultiplierFactorNumeric)) div 100, 0.02)

CII

ram:SpecifiedTradeAllowanceCharge

Test (XPath):

not(ram:CalculationPercent and ram:BasisAmount) or u:slack(if (ram:ActualAmount) then
                        ram:ActualAmount
                    else
                        0, (xs:decimal(ram:BasisAmount) * xs:decimal(ram:CalculationPercent)) div 100, 0.02)

Check your invoice

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Same check via API:

curl -F file=@invoice.xml https://einvoicechecker.com/v1/validate

Related rules

PEPPOL-EN16931-R001 Business process identifier (BT-23) is missing
PEPPOL-EN16931-R002 No more than one note is allowed on document level, unless both the buyer and seller…
PEPPOL-EN16931-R003 Neither buyer reference nor purchase order reference given
PEPPOL-EN16931-R004 Specification identifier is not the Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 identifier
PEPPOL-EN16931-R005 VAT accounting currency equals the invoice currency
PEPPOL-EN16931-R006 Only one invoiced object is allowed on document level
PEPPOL-EN16931-R007 Business process identifier has the wrong format
PEPPOL-EN16931-R008 Document contains empty elements

Frequently asked questions

What does PEPPOL-EN16931-R040 mean?

PEPPOL-EN16931-R040 is a peppol bis billing 3.0 rule: Allowance/charge amount must equal base amount * percentage/100 if base amount and percentage exists

Will my invoice be rejected because of PEPPOL-EN16931-R040?

Yes. PEPPOL-EN16931-R040 is flagged "fatal"; validators (KoSIT, Peppol access points, the German ZRE/OZG-RE portals) reject the invoice until it is fixed.

Which formats does PEPPOL-EN16931-R040 apply to?

Invoices and credit notes sent over the Peppol network (UBL) and, because XRechnung embeds the Peppol rule set, every XRechnung as well. Syntax: UBL and CII.

Source: Peppol BIS Billing 3.0.20 (November 2025). Catalogue generated from the official schematron on 2026-10-14.

PEPPOL-EN16931-R040: Allowance or charge amount does not match base amount times percentage