Catalogues are used by economic operators (suppliers) to describe goods or services offered for sale and may be used by contracting authorities to source goods or services, or to obtain product or pricing details. They can be a component of both the tendering (pre-award) and the purchasing (post-award) processes.

PEPPOL’s eCatalogue component focuses on common data structures and classification schemes. While the purpose and content of pre and post-award catalogues may be different, many structures and classification schemes can be shared. eCatalogues can be used to inform contracting authorities about goods and services supplied under a specific contract, or updates can be made available on a regular basis according to terms of contracts.

PEPPOL’s vision is for any company (including SMEs) in the EU to easily, securely and seamlessly create, validate and send an electronic catalogue of goods and services offered, either as part of a procurement tender issued by any European contracting authority or in response to an awarded contract.

To realise this vision, the PEPPOL project delivered:

• eCatalogue specifications for pre and post-award cross-border procurement, based on the work carried out in the CEN BII workshops
• Open platform for document exchange via PEPPOL's transport infrastructure (for post-award)
• Online testing facilities
• Development of open source software components and demonstrator tools
• Tools to support the creation/visualisation/validation of pre and post-award eCatalogues
• Documented benchmarking and best practices

PEPPOL enables interoperability by lowering the organisational, semantic and technical barriers.

Moreover, PEPPOL provides the opportunity for contracting authorities and their suppliers to expand their access to the wider EU market, while benefiting from increased opportunities and efficiencies.

For more detailed information about PEPPOL, its components, ICT Architecture, and specifications, please follow the link to the PEPPOL EIA (Enterprise Interoperability Architecture) repository or send us an e-mail to: info@peppol.eu.