You are looking for a UBL converter

Three needs, one word

People search for a “UBL converter” for reasons that have almost nothing in common. Naming yours first saves you from a tool that solves someone else’s:

• You want to read it. A supplier sent an .xml file, it shows nothing but tags, and you need to check an amount or a due date. This is by far the most common case: and it is not a conversion at all.
• You want the data. You need the lines, the VAT breakdown or the totals inside a spreadsheet or a bookkeeping tool, without retyping them. This one is a genuine conversion, and it is easy.
• You want another format. A platform refuses your file and asks for CII, XRechnung or Peppol BIS. This is a real conversion too, and almost never something you should do by hand.

The first two are handled below, right now, without an account. The third deserves a warning rather than a tool.

If you want to read it: no conversion needed

A UBL file is an invoice written entirely in XML, with no visual layer of its own. Nothing is missing from it: what is missing is the program that knows PayableAmount means the amount due and DueDate means the deadline.

Supplying that layer is not converting anything. The file stays exactly as it is; only the display changes. Drop it on the home page and the invoice appears laid back out: seller, buyer, lines, VAT breakdown, totals, payment details.

It is also checked against EN 16931 as it opens: an IBAN whose check digits fail, a VAT amount that does not match its base, a due date before the issue date. A converter shows you the file. This tells you whether it holds up.

If you want the data: export to CSV or JSON

This is the conversion that is worth doing, and the one people ask for least. Once the invoice is open, two exports are available:

• CSV: opens directly in a spreadsheet, with the separator and decimal mark a French or German Excel expects. No mangled column on opening.
• JSON, the whole invoice as structured data, for a script or an integration.

A folder of files can be processed in one pass, with an exportable summary. That is where the time is actually saved: not on one invoice, but on the forty that arrived this month.

If you want a PDF: read this first

“Convert UBL to PDF” is the most searched version of the question, and the one that hides the most costly misunderstanding.

A PDF made from an e-invoice is no longer an e-invoice. It is a picture of one. The structured data (the part your accounting software reads, the part the tax authority expects) is gone. Keep the file you received, unchanged, whatever else you produce from it.

With that said, printing is legitimate and often exactly what you need: to file it, to send it to your accountant, to attach it to an expense claim. Open the invoice here and print it from your browser: you get a clean, readable PDF, and the original stays untouched on your disk.

Note what is not offered: no download of a converted file. A page that hands you a “converted invoice” invites you to keep it in place of the real one, and that is the one thing you must not do.

If a platform refuses your file

Converting UBL into CII, or into an XRechnung or Peppol BIS profile, is a real operation: and one you should almost never perform yourself. Two reasons:

• It is usually not a format problem. Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 and XRechnung are UBL, with extra required fields. A file refused for a missing buyer reference is not fixed by converting it; it is fixed by adding the reference at the source.
• It is your provider’s job. Whoever issues your invoices, or the platform that transmits them, converts between profiles as part of the service. Doing it by hand in the middle means signing off on a document you did not produce.

What is worth doing first is finding out what is being refused. Open the file here: the findings name the rule that fails, with the actual figures, in plain language. Take that to your provider rather than a converted file.

Nothing leaves your browser

An invoice carries your revenue, your customers’ names, your terms and often a bank account number. Uploading that to an unknown converter to see a table is a poor trade.

Everything above happens on your own machine. The file is read in the browser and sent to no server: no upload, no account, no log. You can verify it: load the page, disconnect from the network, then drop the file. It still works.