Since 2020 the French government has been focusing on switching to digital documentation. A revised finance law, adopted in September 2021, requires all French companies to switch to electronic invoicing by 2026.
EDiCS, the experts in digitalisation, is here to guide you through this process!
First of all, what is electronic invoicing?
It is necessary to understand the difference between a digitised invoice (scan or photo of a paper invoice, PDF invoice, TXT…) and an electronic invoice.
An electronic invoice has been issued and is transmitted electronically in the form of a structured and standardized message. It contains valuable information which ensures data integrity, authenticity, readability and completeness.
In order to ensure legal archiving of their invoices, they must be archived in an Electronic Archiving System (EAS) which guarantees the integrity, durability and availability of the documents.
All the elements of the invoice listed below must be preserved in order to be fully traceable:
- The input data,
- The translation data in EDI message,
- The EDI message,
- The PDF allowing the readability,
The invoices will be stored according to their legal duration.
So why switch to electronic invoicing?
This law affects all French B2B (Business to Business) companies subject to VAT.
In addition, there are a number of benefits to using digital documents and switching to electronic invoicing.
Besides the fact that it is a powerful tool to fight against tax fraud, using electronic invoicing allows companies to simplify their exchanges, making them faster and less expensive (a saving estimated at 4.5 billion euros by the French Government!). This is a real boost for the competitiveness of French companies.
It is also an excellent tool to simplify administrative processes, by promoting e-reporting with the pre-filling of the VAT declaration. Some data will be extracted from the original invoice and transmitted directly to the tax authorities.
Finally, for the government, e-invoicing represents an excellent way to assess the country’s economic activity in real time.
When will it be implemented?
This measure will be progressively rolled out up to 2026, taking into consideration the size of the companies and in order to allow each one to adopt these new obligations in the best conditions:
- From July 1, 2024 for large companies,
- from January 1, 2025 for medium-sized companies,
- and as of January 1, 2026 for small and medium-sized companies and micro-businesses.
What does this mean in practice?
It is important to note that companies will be free to choose their own transmission model.
The Government is providing a national public platform, the Plateforme Publique de Facturation (PPF), which will allow companies to redirect an invoice from a supplier to a customer and will forward tax information to the relevant authorities. This platform is already used to process invoices for the French public sector. But it remains very time consuming for the users.
But it is also possible to use a private platform certified by the government known as Plateforme de Dématérialisation Partenaire (PDP) such as EDiCSpro!
The data flow is faster, and the implementation is more adapted to invoicing processes. Companies can rely on our support team to manage the translations and set your document to all mandatory formats and standards!
Our customers keep their existing mode of operation regardless of the exchange format used (EDIFACT, XML, UBL, cXML, Factur-X, …).
EDiCS will transfer to the public platform the required data in the expected format.
As experts in digitisation, we can help you to be prepared for this new obligation.
Since 2009, EDiCS has developed a deep experience in electronic invoicing and offers you a secure and seamless exchange between suppliers, their customers and the tax authorities.
EDiCS is certified ISO 27001 – Information Systems Security Management, which means that your data is in good hands.
For a smooth transition, the solution is EDiCS !
