What is an e-invoice?
E-invoice is a machine readable bill. In general, it’s in XML format, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be like that. The Estonian e-invoice standard is XML and its use allows the user to send an invoice from one system to another so that the receiving party doesn’t need to enter any data manually – no contact information, invoice content, etc. This means that the entire invoice content is inside the e-invoice.
Although e-invoice is a machine-readable document, it doesn’t solve all the accounting problems in the world. For example, Estonia’s e-invoice is not ideal for delivering stock invoices because there is no possibility to add different product codes there. Thus, the use of the e-invoice can often be seen, in particular, in case of different expense invoices.
How does e-invoicing work in general?
E-invoices are generally sent through the e-invoice operator. This is a so-called information exchanger to whom the e-invoice is sent and who will forward it either to another operator, or if the customer uses the same operator – directly to the end customer. For further information, operator service is not required when two accounting programs can receive e-invoices via email. This is possible with ERPLY Books.
What is a Digitization Service?
If your vendor sends an invoice in the form of an e-invoice, everything is fine because it can be downloaded directly to ERPLY Books and if all information is present, generally no additional steps are required. But what if the vendor sends the invoice in PDF format? Or an employee sends an expense receipt to the accountant? These documents are not in the form of an e-invoice and must be manually entered into the software by the accountant. Maybe it was possible to automate the work of the accountant so that they would only need to set up accounts for expenses, and not start re-entering the whole invoice? The previously described process is called digitization service. This is still a manual interface where someone enters the information and makes a machine-readable e-invoice. And then, since the e-invoice is machine-readable, the accountant may only deal with account allocation and other activities that are specific for the company and cannot be automated.
E-invoice in ERPLY Books
ERPLY Books supports all major e-invoice processes:
- Sending a sales invoice as an e-invoice
- Receiving a purchase invoice as an e-invoice
- Integrations with multiple e-invoice operators
ERPLY Books supports all major e-invoice versions that are currently available:
- 1.0
- 1.1
- 1.2 – Default version when the sales invoice is downloaded as an e-invoice
Supported operators or other service providers:
- Tsekk.ee – digitization of purchase documents
- Envoice – digitization of purchase documents
- Omniva – sending sales invoices, receiving purchase invoices
- Fitek -– sending sales invoices, receiving purchase invoices
- E-arveldaja – sending sales invoices, receiving purchase invoices
How to start with e-invoicing?
Which solution you take depends on what you need to do. If you only have a couple of invoices per month to be sent, then you can use E-arveldaja (E-operator) for this. If your customer can accept e-invoice via email, then you don’t need any additional solution and you can send it straight via email in ERPLY Books. If you need digitization service, you should look for other solution websites. If you want to automate your purchase document process without digitization service, use our Purchase Inbox feature. And if there is one or two suppliers that want to send e-invoices, but cannot do it via email, then add E-arveldaja for this.
Information per partner:
- Purchase inbox – ERPLY Books internal functionality that you definitely need to use.
- Omniva – here is a tutorial in Estonian language.
- E-arveldaja – this costs additional 0.5 EUR, which will be added to your ERPLY Books monthly subscription. We will add a button for this under Settings > Integrations on 10th of June 2019. You can read the blog post about it also the same day.
- Fitek – needs a specific setup. Please contact info@erplybooks.com.
- Envoice – find the tutorial here.
Purchase invoices
ERPLY Books supports receiving e-invoices from vendors in the following ways:
- The vendor may send an e-invoice directly to the Purchase Inbox. It’s that simple. No additional e-invoice operator required.
- You can receive e-invoices from the following operators:
- Omniva (synchronisation with ERPLY Books)
- Fitek (synchronisation with ERPLY Books)
- Envoice (e-invoice is sent)
When an e-invoice is issued by the operator, the e-invoice file is attached to the purchase invoice in ERPLY Books.
Sales invoices
All options:
- you can send e-invoices one by one to the customer
- can send multiple e-invoices to customers
- can be sent directly through Books
- can be sent through Fitek, Omniva and Envoice
- We can activate E-arveldaja integration, so that you don’t need to have a seperate e-invoice operator such as Fitek or Omniva.
- The process of e-invoicing can be fully automated:
- Every night ERPLY Books checks if there are invoices that hadn’t been sent out
- System checks if there are invoices that need to be sent as e-invoices
- System sends them directly to the operator service
- Automatic sending is also related to other alternative ways of sending invoices, such as invoice planner or manually sending invoices. During the process, ERPLY Books checks in which format customer needs to receive the invoices. E-invoicing is one of the several different approaches (others include PDF via email, e-invoice via email, and also factoring that needs its own specific setup)
Sending e-invoices from ERPLY Books one by one:
- To send an e-invoice by email, open the invoice, click on the envelope icon and select the option Add e-invoice
- To send an e-invoice to a partner service, you need to:
- Set up partner service (Settings > Integrations)
- Open an invoice and select the operator from the Send menu
- Full automation of the partner service needs a separate onboarding. The price list can be found at our homepage. For this, contact info@erplybooks.com
In order to send e-invoices automatically from ERPLY Books:
- Write to info@erplybooks.com about it
- Together we will add rules how to recognise customers, who need e-invoices
- Together we will add rules how to exclude specific invoices from sending
- We will check if invoice templates and data match your needs
- We will set rules how to recognise new customers for e-invoices
- If necessary, with the same setup we will set up rules for automatic email sending also (because ERPLY Books can track if the email was received and opened)
- This setting has one time fee of 599 EUR
General e-invoice setup in ERPLY Books:
- GLOBAL_ADD_ATTACHMENT_TO_EINVOICE – if it is on, the PDF file will be added to the e-invoice
- Omniva:
- default version that is sent to Omniva is 1.2
- If you want to send version 1.1 to Omniva, you need to add ATTRIBUTE_GLOBAL_OMNIVA_VERSION12
- If you don’t want to synchronize non-confirmed purchase invoices, you need to add GLOBAL_EINVOICE_IGNORE_NOT_CONFIRMED
- Fitek: Generally needs additional training and onboarding. Please contact info@erplybooks.com for this matter
- GLOBAL_SAVE_FAILED_EINVOICE – If the e-invoice synchronization fails, they will be added to your Purchase Inbox
- If you use Erply POS, it is wise to add a PartnerAPI solution that allows you to monitor which invoices have already been sent to the operator and which ones are not.
- If you want to send an invoice via email so that the e-invoice will be attached also:
- By default e-invoice is not attached. To attach it, you need to check Add E-invoice while sending out your invoice.
- If you wish that latter checkbox is always filled, go to Settings > Configuration and enable Add automatically e-invoice into sales invoice email if possible.
- If you don’t want to see any PDF in your email (you only want the e-invoice to be attached), go to Settings > Configuration and enable Add only e-invoice when sending invoice (PDF will be embedded to e-invoice if possible)