Electronic invoicing will force the use of other formats

Office tools like Excel and Word have played a major role in preparing and managing invoices and bookkeeping for hundreds of thousands of small and medium businesses and self-employed professionals. These are relatively easy-to-use tools that allow you to convert invoices to PDF and send them to your clients.

However Create and develop law approved two years ago, will make things a little more difficult for these professionals: only approved electronic invoicing systems will be allowed to be used. This de facto means goodbye to Excel, Word and other office automation alternatives for the self-employed.

Mandatory electronic invoice. It is not surprising, since Law 18/2022 of September 28, also known as the Crea y Crece Law, has been in force for two years as a measure to digitalize businesses, as a mechanism to combat late payments to the public sector and commercial transactions between companies. In this way, the invoicing system in Spain will be brought into line with the European plan known as VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA).

From July 2024, electronic invoicing will be mandatory for companies with a turnover of more than eight million euros. As indicated on the information page of the tax office. From 2025, SMEs and companies with a turnover below this figure will also be forced to use electronic invoices. According to the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism, this will directly affect 93.15% of SMEs with fewer than ten employees, which make up the Spanish industrial structure.

Adaptation to the new billing systemThe government is preparing guidance to help SMEs and the self-employed adapt to this new regulation, which will require all company invoices to be generated using approved invoicing software or a publicly available invoicing platform (which, surprisingly, no one has some flaws).

This means that invoices created in Excel, Word or presented in PDF format will no longer be valid invoicing options in the business sector and for the self-employed. In addition, paper invoices will also disappear. For now, invoices issued to individuals are excluded from this measure, which will happen in the next stage of digitalization.

Electronic Invoice Requirements. The regulations stipulate that electronic invoices must “guarantee the integrity, integrity, accessibility, legibility, traceability and immutability of records without interpolations, omissions or changes that do not leave a proper annotation in the systems themselves.” This will prevent invoice falsification.

These conditions will be met using formats such as XML or AEAT Facturae, which are difficult to modify and allow invoices to be traced back to their original issuer.

Uncertainty in the new system. Although the rules have been in place for over two years, there is still uncertainty about how this new invoicing system will work, as there is no strict technical regulation in this regard. This complicates the process of implementing a single file standard in third-party management software.

The only thing that is known with certainty is that the account formats that will be supported to meet the requirements of the Ministry of Economy will be XML CII (UN CEFACT), UBL (Universal business language), EDIFACT (ISO 9735 standard) and Facturae.

There are no regulations, but there are already sanctionsClear rules for establishing a standard file format for issuing electronic invoices have not yet been established, but sanctions are provided for those who do not comply with them.

The rules stipulate that the fine can range from 150 euros for each incorrectly processed document (assuming a minor error) to 75% of the invoice amount with data that was probably falsified, which is considered a very serious error. In addition, according to the consultancy, companies that do not adapt their payment system to the requirements set by the new rules can be fined up to 10,000 euros. Confislab

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