Electronic invoicing (e-invoicing)

Since January 1^st 2020, all French companies have been required to send their invoices to public bodies in electronic format. All these invoices pass through “Chorus Pro”. However, to date, business-to-business transactions are still not very dematerialized, which generates additional costs for companies.

The amending finance law for 2022 provides for the obligation of electronic invoicing in exchanges between companies subject to VAT and established in France.

This obligation serves several purposes:

• to strengthen the competitiveness of companies by reducing administrative burdens, reducing payment times and productivity gains induced by dematerialization. For example, for a company, the cost of an electronic invoice is lower than that of a postage stamp, while that of a paper invoice is more than 10 euros;
• to simplify, in the long term, the declarative obligations of companies in terms of VAT thanks to a pre-filling of declarations;
• to accelerate fraud detections.

I – Definition of the main terms used

1. 1. Electronic invoice

It is an invoice issued, transmitted and received in a dematerialized form and which necessarily includes a minimum base of data in structured form, which differentiates it from “paper” invoices or ordinary PDF.

It will be sent to the customer through a dematerialization platform, whether it is the public invoicing portal or another dematerialization platform. The use of electronic invoices allows savings for all companies and constitutes a lever for modernizing the invoicing chain.

Invoices transmitted electronically are only valid if the authenticity of their origin (issuer identified), the integrity of their content (not editable) and their readability are guaranteed.

1. 2. E-reporting

E-reporting is the transmission to the administration of certain information (for example, the amount of the operation, the amount of VAT invoiced, etc.) relating to commercial operations that are not affected by electronic invoicing. These are sales and service provision transactions with individuals (or business to consumer transactions “BtoC” such as retail) or transactions with operators established abroad (exports, intra-Community deliveries, etc.). E-reporting makes it possible to reconstruct the overall economic activity of a company complementary to electronic invoicing. Its aim is to allow, in the long term, to offer companies a pre-filling of their VAT declarations.

1. 3. Public portal and dematerialization platforms

Supplier invoices will be sent to companies in electronic form through the chosen platform(s). This platform can be the same as the provider’s, a separate platform, or the public billing portal.

Similarly, when companies issue their invoices to their customers, they will have to use the services of a platform. Any company is free to choose the dematerialization platform(s) of its choice, partner platform and/or public invoicing portal, according to its needs. The platform must be able to offer a readable invoice if the user wishes.

II – The implementation of the electronic invoice

1. 1. Implementation schedule

All transactions carried out between VAT taxable persons established in France must use the electronic invoicing process according to the following schedule:

• From July 1^st 2024 for large companies;
• From January 1^st 2025 for mid-sized companies;
• From January 1^st 2026 for small and medium-sized enterprises as well as for micro-enterprises.

Also affected by this obligation are taxable persons who are not liable for VAT (micro-entrepreneurs and legal persons with VAT exemptions) in order, particularly to control threshold overruns.

Warning: The obligation to receive invoices in electronic format will be mandatory from July 1^st 2024 for all companies, regardless of their size, as soon as their supplier is required to issue in electronic format.

1. 2. The data to be transmitted

• The new mandatory information to appear on invoices

These mentions concern the transactions carried out between liable for VAT, they are:

• The SIREN number;
• The delivery address of the goods, where different from the customer’s address;
• Information that the transactions giving rise to an invoice consist exclusively of deliveries of goods or services or consist of both categories of transactions;
• The payment of the tax according to the debits, when the service provider has opted for this.

• The data to be transmitted to the tax authorities concerning transactions carried out with non-VAT subject persons

Regarding these transactions, the data to be transmitted by the VAT taxable person are:

• SIREN number;
• The period for which the transmission is made;
• Where applicable, the mention “option for the payment of the tax according to the debits”;
• The category of transaction: delivery of goods, provision of services or mixed transactions;
• The total amount excluding tax and the amount of the corresponding tax;
• The total amount of tax due in France (in Euros);
• Currency;
• The date of the transactions;
• The number of daily transactions (for transactions not giving rise to an electronic invoice);
• The invoice number (for operations giving rise to electronic invoicing).

• The data to be transmitted relating to the payment of service provision operations

Regarding these payments, the data to be transmitted to the tax authorities are:

• SIREN number;
• The period for which the transmission is made;
• The effective collection date;
• The amount collected, by VAT tax rate;
• The invoice number (for operations giving rise to electronic invoicing).

1. 3. Format of electronic invoices

Operators of partner dematerialization platforms and the public invoicing portal must transmit electronic invoices according to one of the three types of format below:

• The Cross Industry Invoice (CII) format;
• The Universal Business Language (UBL) format;
• The mixed format consisting of a structured data file in XML format and a PDF file.

1. 4. The role of a dematerialization platform

A dematerialization platform is a service provider that will have several roles:

• Issuance, transmission, reception of the electronic invoice from the supplier to the customer;
• Conversion of the invoice established by the supplier in a format that suits the client;
• Extraction and transmission of certain data from the invoice to the tax authorities (for example, identification of the supplier and the customer, amount excluding VAT of the operation, amount of VAT due, VAT rate applied, etc.);
• Transmission of transaction data that is not the subject of an electronic invoice to the administration;
• Transmission of payment data for all operations.

1. 5. Penalty in the event of non-compliance with electronic invoicing and data transmission obligations

Failure to comply with the billing and transmission of billing data obligations will result in a fine of:

• €15 per invoice in the event of non-issuance of an invoice in electronic format, capped at €15,000 per calendar year;
• €250 in the event of non-compliance with the e-reporting obligation, capped at €15,000 per calendar year.

All our team is at your disposal to help you with the electronic invoice, don’t hesitate to contact us!