The approval of the Create and Grow Law by the Congress of Deputies has meant the adoption of electronic invoicingmodifying the previous regulations and expanding the obligation to issue and send electronic invoices to all companies and freelancers in their business relationships. The date established for its adoption has been set as of September 2023.
This circumstance will guarantee a greater traceability and control of payments between them. Likewise, another of the objectives is to obtain reliable and agile information to know the effective payment terms, an essential requirement to be able to reduce delinquency effectively.
The effective implementation of electronic invoicing will be facilitated with the resources provided for the digitization of SMEs in the Recovery Plan. In particular, the Digital Toolkit Program will include electronic invoicing among the eligible products and services.
The Government intends with this initiative to promote its use in operations between companies and the self-employed as a measure of business digitization and as a mechanism, also, to combat late payment in commercial operations.
what is an electronic invoice?
An electronic invoice has the same legal effects as a paper invoice, with the difference that it is issued and received in electronic format. However, its issuance is subject to the consent of the recipient. In other words, it is proof of delivery of goods or provision of services, issued and received in digital format.
legal regulations
Invoices, in general, and electronic invoices, in particular, are regulated by Royal Decree 1619/2012, of November 30, which approves the regulations governing billing obligations. This Regulation establishes the rules that must be complied with by invoices, both on paper and electronically.
It regulates aspects such as:
- Obligation to issue an invoice.
- Types of invoices: complete or ordinary and simplified.
- Expedition by third parties.
- Invoice content.
- Invoice requirements: legibility, authenticity and integrity.
- Specifics of the electronic invoice.
- Deadlines.
- Other invoices: recapitulative, duplicates, corrective.
- Special schemes.
- Conservation.
Legibility, authenticity and integrity
All invoices, whether electronic or on paper, must guarantee:
- The legibility of the invoice.
- The authenticity of the origin of the invoice (that is, to guarantee the identity of the person obliged to issue it and the issuer of the invoice, who may be the same person).
- The integrity of the content of the invoice (that is, guarantee that its content has not been modified).
In the case of the electronic invoice: Legibility is facilitated by the computer program that creates or receives it.
Authenticity and integrity can be guaranteed in various ways:
- Through advanced electronic signature based on a recognized certificate.
- Through electronic exchange of EDI data.
- Through other means that the interested parties have communicated to the State Tax Administration Agency prior to their use and have been validated by it.
- Through the usual management controls of the business or professional activity of the taxpayer, provided that they allow the creation of a reliable audit trail that establishes the necessary connection between the invoice and the delivery of goods or provision of services that it documents.
Advantage
The increase in security and the saving of time and money are the main reasons that lead a company to start invoicing electronically. Some of its advantages are:
Savings in billing costs: Compared to the traditional invoice, the issuance of electronic invoices represents savings of almost 70%, due to the reduction in costs in paper handling, stamping, treasury management, etc. While at the reception, moving from paper to electronic allows savings of 65%.
Time saving and process optimization: electronic invoicing shortens invoice delivery times and reduces the entire payment process between companies or between users and companies. In issuance, it is estimated that the manual time dedicated to the creation, printing, handling and enveloping, sending and filing per paper invoice is one minute and 33 seconds; while with the electronic invoice, the time of creation, sending and filing becomes 30 seconds.
Reduced environmental impact: Electronic invoicing is also environmentally friendly. Every million paper invoices requires 10,000 kilograms of wood. By moving to electronic format, that million invoices prevents the felling of 56 trees.
