Peppol SMP
What is Peppol SMP?
The Peppol Service Metadata Publisher (SMP) is a registry that stores the key details about a business or organisation on the Peppol network – such as what types of e-documents they can receive and how to send them.
If you want to receive e-documents (such as e-invoices or purchase orders) on the Peppol network, your organisation needs to be registered in an SMP. Without it, other businesses or government agencies won’t know how to deliver documents to you.
About the Tickstar SMP
Tickstar is the only SMP provider offering a true multi-tenant service to users in 20 countries. It can also connect with national e-identity frameworks for secure verification. Tickstar’s SMP services are the most widely used in the world with approximately 40-45% of all global Peppol participants registered onto a Tickstar SMP.
The Tickstar SMP enables 2 key functions:
- Registering participants (end users) on the Peppol network
- Linking Access Points to those users, so they’re able to send/recive Peppol documents
Benefits
- API – Integrate Tickstar’s SMP directly into your own applications to manage receivers instantly. Includes full Peppol Directory support and improved error handling.
- Web dashboard with an easy-to-use interface
- Instant Peppol compliance so you can start receiving documents right away
- Secure hosting and around-the-clock support
- Participant Lookup API – Quickly find details about any Peppol participant, including whether they are registered and what documents they can receive. Works across all SMPs, with results in JSON or XML.
Add Ons
The Participant lookup API – Find all details about any Peppol participant
The SMP API
The Basics: What is an SMP? Do I need one?
An SMP (Service Metadata Publisher) is a directory service used by the Peppol network to find where documents should be delivered.
For each participant, the SMP stores:
- Their Peppol Participant ID
- The document types they can receive (for example, invoices, orders)
- The Access Point endpoint(s) that should receive those documents
In simple terms, the SMP tells the network who can receive what, and where to send it.
Note: you need an SMP if you want to receive Peppol documents.
Without an SMP record:
- Other Access Points cannot find your participants
- Documents cannot be routed or delivered
- Even if your Access Point is live, you will not receive anything
You do not need to register on an SMP if you only send documents.
What to consider when choosing an SMP
When selecting an SMP, consider:
- Reliability and uptime: SMP outages block inbound traffic
- Automation support: API access for participant onboarding
- Scalability: ability to support high volumes of participants
- Ease of management: UI and tooling for operations teams
- Compliance: alignment with Peppol authority requirements
For SaaS platforms and large service providers, automation is especially important, as onboarding and updating participants manually does not scale.
How Tickstar supports SMP services
Tickstar provides:
- A fully hosted SMP service for both production and test
- An SMP Manager API, which allows:
- Automated participant creation and updates
- Integration into your own onboarding workflows
- Self-service enablement for customers
This makes Tickstar’s SMP suitable for SaaS vendors, platform providers and white-label Access Point customers.
Need an SMP? Contact Tickstar today to get started.
Participants: Does the Tickstar SMP have an API?
Yes. The SMP Manager API allows you to automate how participants are created and managed.
Using the API, you can:
- Create, update and delete participants automatically
- Assign document types and Access Point endpoints
- Build Peppol onboarding directly into your own customer workflows
Typical automation example
A SaaS vendor adds an “Enable Peppol” toggle in their app. When a customer turns it on, the system automatically:
- Generates or collects a Participant ID
- Calls the SMP Manager API to:
- Create the participant
- Register them on Peppol
- Link them to the provider’s Access Point configuration
This makes onboarding fast and fully self-service, without users needing to interact with the SMP interface directly.
Participants: How do I register a new participant using the SMP UI or Manager API?
You can onboard new participants in two ways: using the SMP user interface (UI) or the SMP Manager API.
A. Using the SMP UI (Management Portal)
Best for manual setup or low-volume onboarding.
Steps:
- Log in to the Tickstar Management Portal.
- Go to SMP & Participants.
- Click Add Participant.
- Enter the required details:
- Participant ID (for example: 0007:5567212047)
- Name and description
- Langauage (of name)
- Country Code
- Configure document capabilities:
- Add the document types the participant can receive (for example, BIS Billing 3.0).
- For each document type, select the Access Point endpoint that will receive it.
- Enable the SML/SMK toggle:
- Use SMK for test
- Use SML for production
Turn this on when you are ready for the participant to be discoverable on the Peppol network.
- Save and confirm the setup.
B. Using the SMP Manager API
Best for SaaS providers and large networks. With this approach, you integrate your system directly with the SMP Manager API.
When a new customer enables Peppol in your product, your system:
- Generates or collects their Peppol Participant ID.
- Sends an API request to create the participant record.
- Configures:
- Supported document types, and
- The receiving Access Point endpoints.
- Activates SMK or SML when ready.
- Optionally shows status in your own UI (for example: “Peppol registration active”).
This approach is ideal for self-service onboarding, where customers never need to access the SMP UI directly.Learn more about Peppol documents in Tickstar SMP.