Italy Clarifies E-Invoicing Regulations

Italy recently published a degree – titled Circular 18/E – that clarifies the European country’selectronic invoicing regulations.

For example, the Italian Revenue Agency defined “business control” as a system to guarantee the main requirements of the authenticity, integrity and legibility of an electronic invoice, according to E-Invoicing Platform.

“A ‘business control’ creates a reliable audit trail that documents, step by step, the entire history of a transaction, from the early beginning (for example a purchase order) until the end of it (for example the final registration in the annual books) in order to create a logical link among all the documents of a transaction,” the news source explained. “This definition faithfully reflects the content of the EU Explanatory notes about electronic invoicing.”

The decree also explains which features of the electronic invoice are necessary for tax purposes and cancelled the requirement to send the “imprint” of the time reference to the Italian Revenue Agency along with the related electronic signature. Essentially, the timestamp is required once per year and it is no longer necessary to send it to the Italian authorities.

Spain alsoannounced earlier this year that as of January 2015, eInvoicing would be mandatory for all public sector payments or business-to-government payments. The Spanish government explained that the mandatory policy is designed to enhance security and streamline the invoicing process, as well as save money.