Profile creation + verification - Quick Guide

Step 1: Create your profile

Enter EPREL, click on the ‘I accept the terms’ box. Once it’s ticked, click on Create new supplier organisation:

Fill in your general information and click on Create at the bottom of the page.

The following displayed page shows a summary of your encoded details. You can edit or delete them by clicking on the respective buttons.

Organisation Identifier

EPREL helps proposing an Organisation Identifier based on the ETSI EN 319 412-1 (paragraph 5.1.5) standard.

NTR stands for National Trade Register. It is used to verify if the supplier is established in the EU.

If the “NTR” Identity Type Reference is selected, EPREL will propose an organisation identifier based on the Country of Residence, Business Register Number and Business Register ID, according to the syntax as in Regulation (EU) 2021/1042, 

If the organisation identifier recommended by EPREL doesn't match with the one from your seal, do not use it. Instead, introduce the exact organisation identifier value from your qualified seal.

Good to know

• Once you have filled in the General Information section and saved your data, your Organisation is created with the status UNVERIFIED. Next, you need to go through the Supplier Verification Process.
• Information from this section are used for the verification process and also shared with the Market Surveillance Authorities.
• Only once the Organisation is VERIFIED, your registered and and published products become publicly available.
• After the Implementing Act only VERIFIED suppliers will be able to register models. Models from UNVERIFIED suppliers will not be visible in Public site even if they were visible before.

Important note

• Even though you might be using your individual EU Login account when creating your EPREL Organisation, you associated your account to the organisation entity who is placing the products on the market, as this is the entity for which you are registering models.
• EPREL accounts are not for personal use, so make the difference between individual profile, as user of the account, and the entity responsible for placing products on the market, who is registering the products.

Step 2: Add your brands/trademarks

You should add the brands/trademarks of the models beforehand, to avoid issues such as typos, case inconsistency, etc. So click on Brand/Trademarks, under General Information and fill in the requested fields for all your brands (you may add others, at any time, in future).

By clicking on Add, the following window pops up

Once you click on OK, the details are registered as per the picture here below. The Actions button on the top right allows you to Deactivate, Delete, Edit

Trademarks can be edited by selecting ACTIONS > EDIT in the button on the right of each card. If the trademark is still not used in any model, you can edit all, the reference and the name. If it has been already used, only the reference is editable, as changing the name will make all the labels printed and sticked to boxes incompliant. The field for the trademark owner can only be edited if the verification process for the trademark hasn’t been started yet, or it has already been verified.

Trademarks can be deleted by selecting ACTIONS > DELETE, only if the trademark is still not used in any model, for the same reason.

Trademarks can be deactivated by selecting ACTIONS > DEACTIVATE. Deactivating a trademark will make it not usable anymore in any new model registration, but it will keep it in already registered models because it is used in labels. Any deactivated trademark can be activated again by clicking ACTIONS > REACTIVATE.

Important

• Before you start the Verification Process, go to your EPREL Organisation profile and and make sure that all your Organisation data is correct.
• If your Organisation is a legal person, your Business Register Number and Business Register ID must be already filled in in your Organisation settings. These fields are used to issue your Verification PDF document that needs to be electronically sealed.
• If your Organisation is a natural person, make sure the First Name, Last Name and Country metadata from your electronic signature match the corresponding fields in your EPREL Organisation file. For a natural person, if your Organisation has a Company name, then this field will be used in the verification process as well.
• New and existing Organisations are initially set as UNVERIFIED, therefore needing to pass verification (as mentioned, only product models from VERIFIED suppliers become available for searches in the Public site).
• If you have created your EPREL Organisation before the introduction of the verification process, you still need to get verified. Please consider that all your previously published models won't be available for search in the Public Site (even by citizens and retailers scanning the QR code or searching by the EPREL ID), until your Organisation becomes VERIFIED. Member States Authorities can anyhow access any product in published state, from the date indicated as of placing of the market.
• If your Organisation doesn't have a seal or electronic signature with the correct metadata (in particular the organisation name, the country code, and the organisation identifier), you should contact your service provider.

Step 3: How to start the verification process

To start the Verification Process, go to ORGANISATION > VERIFICATION and click on START  ELECTRONIC VERIFICATION

Once this is done, you will be automatically directed to the section where you can REQUEST VERIFICATION FILE.

Step 4: Request Verification File

In this step, you need to select in which language you prefer to receive the Verification File, and also provide the name and email address of the person from your Organisation, legally entitled to electronically seal or sign the Verification Form.

You will also be required to fill in extra information for legal person: 

• First name
• Last name 
• Email address 
• Language - in which you prefer EPREL to generate the Verification Form

Important

If you are representing a Legal Entity Organisation, make sure you have already filled in your EPREL Organisation setting, the Business Register Number and Business Register ID. Without this information, EPREL won't issue the Verification file.

Step 5: Download verification file to be sealed

Once you request the Verification File, EPREL will start building the document in a PDF format, which will be already sealed by European Commission. This process can take up to several minutes. During this time EPREL confirms that the request for generating the Verification File is in progress.

You can now download the Verification File. This file contains your Organisation identification data and is sealed by the European Commission. Please review it carefully before signing. In case your data is not correct, you can restart the process anytime.

Good to know

As Supplier Admin, you may not have direct access/use of the seal available to your organisation. Please make the necessary arrangements inside your organisation to have the qualified seal in the correct format, and have the Verification File sealed by the competent/entitled employee.

The Electronic Verification requires legal persons to own a qualified electronic seal and natural persons to own a qualified signature, with the Organisation’s metadata, as defined in EPREL.

If you do not have a qualified electronic certificate/signature, please contact your Certified Authorities (CA). 

A list of Qualified Trusted Providers is updated on the Commission website. 

Step 6: Get your electronic seal

How to seal a document can vary but generally the service provider offers a service where the customer uploads the document to be sealed, performs the sealing and downloads it. Hardware tools are possible as well. Please address to you service provider to get specific information on how to perform the operation.

To find the list of Qualified Service Providers, go to List of Trust Service Providers.

To find out more on how to obtain a Qualified Electronic Certificate, click here.

Good to know

In a free market, prices can greatly vary, depending on the “packages” of services offered, usually including tens or hundreds of eSeals and related services and assistance. While some providers might even offer the service for free, usually for a limited time, the cost can start from a few tens of euros, to a thousand euros or so. In case of enterprises, the cost is influenced by the number of users and volume of certificates, varying from few hundreds to more. 

Step 7: Upload the Sealed/Signed Verification File

LEGAL ENTITIES: At this point, for legal entities, you have to seal the verification PDF with a QUALIFIED ELECTRONIC SEAL.

After you have sealed the PDF, you have to upload the PDF file and you can move on to the next step.

NATURAL PERSONS: For natural person, you have to sign the verification PDF with a QUALIFIED ELECTRONIC SIGNATURE.

Follow these steps: 

• Open the PDF file and go to Tools > Certificates

• Select the option “Digitally sign”

• Accept the information message

• Choose the signature to be used from the list “Sign as:”

• Click the button SIGN and save the PDF with the signature to disk

Seal the verification files with the electronic seal. The method for this step depends on the selected choice of electronic seal provider. Contact your electronic seal provider for further guidance.

• Upload the sealed verification file.

If the verification files do not contain the necessary information or electronic seal, the verification process will fail. In the example below, a verification file without an electronic seal has been uploaded.

Once you have uploaded the signed Verification PDF, you will receive the verification resolution in a few moments.

Step 8: Check Verification Result

When the verification process is approved, you will receive the following message:

Once the verification file is successfully uploaded, the verification process is complete, and the organisations status will change from Unverified to Verified. After the verification process is completed, all company’s products can be searched by using EPREL’s search function and by scanning the QR code on the energy label. 

Please note that the electronic seal should only be used once, specifically for the verification of the company. If the company’s details in the national business register change, such as name or address, the company must be reverified. The electronic seal should therefore not be used for each product registration in EPREL.