How to Edit a CII XML Invoice Without Breaking It
Sooner or later every team that exchanges e-invoices ends up staring at a Cross Industry Invoice file that needs one change: an IBAN typed wrong, a stale due date, a VAT total the validator refuses, and no access to the system that generated the file. The editor above turns that XML into a form, lets you change the data, and writes a fresh, validated CII file back out.
Why hand-editing CII XML usually ends badly
CII was designed for machines. The elements live in three namespaces (rsm, ram, udt), their order inside each parent is fixed by the schema, and monetary amounts are repeated in several places that must stay in agreement: line totals, tax bases per category, the tax total, the grand total. Change a single price in a text editor and you have four other numbers to update, in the right elements, with the right rounding. Miss one and the file fails the EN 16931 arithmetic rules; nudge an element out of order and it stops parsing entirely.
What the form editor does instead
The uploaded file is parsed into the EN 16931 invoice model: seller and buyer with their identifiers, document references, line items, VAT breakdown, payment details. You edit plain fields; quantities, prices, and rates recompute every dependent total on the fly. Whatever the form does not display, embedded attachments, notes, and document level allowances included, is preserved and merged back. On download the XML is regenerated from scratch by the same engine behind the CII generator, so element order, namespaces, and encoding are correct by construction.
The fixes people actually come here for
- Repairing the VAT breakdown after a price or rate change, so the category totals and the grand total agree again
- Correcting or adding the seller's VAT identifier or SIREN
- Fixing an IBAN, or adding one where the payment means requires it
- Setting the buyer reference a public-sector customer insists on
- Repairing dates that were exported in the wrong format
- Completing an address whose country code was left empty
Standalone XML or hybrid PDF: pick the right editor
This page reads a standalone CII file (or pulls the XML out of a hybrid PDF) and gives you corrected, standalone CII XML back: the right tool when your process exchanges raw XML. If what you need back is a corrected Factur-X hybrid PDF, the invoice editor produces one from the same upload:
- Edit a Factur-X invoice and regenerate the hybrid PDF
- Wrap a finished CII XML into a Factur-X PDF/A-3
Read the rule report, then edit, then check again
If a platform rejected the file and you only have the error codes, validate it first: the report names every violated rule and the element behind it, which tells you exactly which fields to change here. The regenerated file is validated again before download, so the round trip ends with a file that passes: