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Warning

UBL-CR-489: Leave payment means out of discounts and charges

In short

Warning: worth checking.

UBL-CR-489 means a discount or charge on the whole invoice has its own PaymentMeans, which EN 16931 does not use. Remove this nested cac:PaymentMeans and keep payment instructions at document level.

On this page

What it means

This rule warns when a document-level discount (BG-20) or charge (BG-21), represented by cac:AllowanceCharge directly under Invoice or CreditNote, contains cac:PaymentMeans. Payment instructions (BG-16), including the payment means code (BT-81), belong at document level rather than inside a discount or charge.

Why it matters

EN 16931 associates payment instructions with the invoice or credit note as a whole, not with individual document-level discounts or charges.

How to fix it

Delete cac:PaymentMeans from each cac:AllowanceCharge directly under Invoice or CreditNote. Keep any payment instructions in the document-level cac:PaymentMeans elements. For a bank transfer, check the payment account details there. If your invoicing software writes payment means inside discounts or charges, ask its supplier to fix the export. Recheck the corrected file.

Once the file is corrected, check it again for free: Validate an invoice against EN 16931

Or fix the invoice in a form and download the corrected file, for 1 credit: Fix a rejected e-invoice

The rule as published

A UBL invoice should not include the AllowanceCharge PaymentMeans

Where this rule applies

Rule set Version
EN 16931 (UBL) 1.3.17
EN 16931 (UBL credit note) 1.3.17
XRechnung 3.0 (UBL) 3.0.2
XRechnung 3.0 (UBL credit note) 3.0.2
Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 (invoice) 2026.5
Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 (credit note) 2026.5
SI-UBL 2.0 / NLCIUS (invoice) 2.0.3.13
SI-UBL 2.0 / NLCIUS (credit note) 2.0.3.13
France CTC (UBL invoice) 1.4.0-04
France CTC (UBL credit note) 1.4.0-04
CIUS-RO UBL Invoice 1.0.9 1.0.9
CIUS-RO UBL Credit Note 1.0.9 1.0.9
Rule text from phive-rules 4.6.4.

Check your file

Drop your e-invoice to see whether UBL-CR-489 still fails, and which other rules do.

Updated 6 November 2026