Paying an invoice with the QR code

01What's going on

The QR code on the Payment card is an EPC QR — the SEPA Credit Transfer standard recognised by KBC, Belfius, ING, BNP Paribas Fortis, Argenta, and the rest of the European bank apps. It contains:

• The contractor's IBAN.
• The exact amount to pay (in EUR).
• The contractor's name as the beneficiary.
• The structured communication or free-text reference if there is one.

When you scan it from your bank app's pay-with-QR feature, the form opens with all fields filled. You confirm and authorise. Hemma never sees the payment leave your bank — your bank does, you do, and the QR is just a faster way to fill the form.

02How to use it from desktop

You are on a laptop, looking at an invoice in Hemma. The QR is on the Payment card.

1. Open your bank app on your phone.
2. Find the pay with QR or scan option (every Belgian bank has one — usually on the home screen or under Payments).
3. Point the camera at the QR on your screen.
4. The bank app fills the form. Verify the amount and IBAN match what you see in Hemma, and confirm the payment in the app.
5. Back in Hemma, tap Mark as paid on the same invoice. See marking an invoice as paid.

The Mark-as-paid step is separate because Hemma does not have a window into your bank account — only you know the transfer actually went through.

03How to use it from mobile

If you are reading this on your phone, scanning your own screen is awkward. The Payment card has a Show QR button that opens the QR full-screen so you can scan it from a second device, or use your phone's screenshot-and-scan flow if your bank app supports it.

Most of the time on mobile, Copy is faster: it puts the IBAN, amount, and reference on your clipboard as three lines that you can paste into your bank app's manual transfer form.

04Where the data comes from

Everything in the QR is read off the invoice by the AI when it arrives. If something is wrong:

• IBAN wrong or missing. The Payment card lets you edit the IBAN inline. If the contractor's invoice listed multiple IBANs, you pick from a dropdown of the ones Hemma extracted.
• Amount wrong. Edit the amount on the same card. The QR regenerates immediately. If you are paying a partial amount on purpose (e.g. only the deposit half), this is where to set it — the QR encodes whatever number is in the field.
• Reference wrong. Belgian invoices use structured communication (the +++123/4567/89012+++ format). Hemma extracts it as-is into the reference field. You can edit it, and the QR re-encodes.

05Common questions

My bank app says the QR is invalid. Two usual causes: (1) the IBAN failed the Belgian/SEPA checksum and the QR was generated from the raw value — see a contractor's VAT number won't validate for how IBAN validation works in the same place; (2) the QR is a screenshot from far away and the bank app cannot resolve the dots. Tap Show QR to enlarge it.

Does the QR include my structured communication? Yes, when one was on the invoice. The reference field is the only field most contractors actually care about — paying without it makes their reconciliation harder.

Can I pay multiple invoices with one QR? No. The EPC QR standard is one transfer per code. Pay them one at a time.

Will my bank charge me for QR payments? No — it is a normal SEPA transfer, costed the same as any other domestic payment.

Does Hemma know I paid? Not from the QR scan. Hemma only knows you paid when you tap Mark as paid.

06What if it goes wrong

• The QR does not appear at all? You need a valid IBAN on the invoice. The Payment card shows a warning under the IBAN field when one is missing or fails validation. Edit it inline.
• The amount on the QR does not match what you expected? See the AI extracted the wrong amount or contractor — the AI may have read the wrong line as the total.

07Related

• Marking an invoice as paid
• Net, VAT, and total — what Hemma uses where
• Tracking what's still owed per contractor
• The AI extracted the wrong amount or contractor