Electronic invoice in 2015 - everything you need to know

Electronic invoicing is becoming more and more popular among Polish entrepreneurs. Many specialists have already convinced about the benefits of such a solution, presenting arguments related to both economy and ecology. Importantly, since 2014, another one can be added to them - in connection with the amendment to the VAT Act, the definition of e-invoice has appeared in Polish regulations, thanks to which the doubts regarding the understanding of this concept have disappeared.

What information must an electronic invoice contain?

According to Art. 2 point 31 of the amended VAT Act, an invoice shall be a paper or electronic document containing the data required by the Act and the regulations issued on its basis. The obligatory elements of the sales document in question (both in traditional and electronic form) include:

• date of issue,
• a sequential number, given within one or more series, which uniquely identifies the invoice,
• names and surnames or names of the taxpayer and buyer of goods or services and their addresses,
• the number by which the taxpayer is identified for the tax, subject to paragraph 2. 2 point 11 lit. and,
• the number by which the buyer of goods or services is identified for the tax or value added tax under which he received the goods or services, subject to paragraph 2 point 11 lit. b,
• the date of completion or completion of the delivery of the goods or the performance of the service, if such date is specified and differs from the invoice issue date; in the case of continuous sales, the taxpayer may indicate the month and year of sale on the invoice,
• name (type) of goods or services,
• measure and quantity (number) of delivered goods or scope of services rendered,
• unit price of a good or service without the tax amount (net unit price),
• the amount of any rebates, including for early receipt of receivables, unless they are included in the net unit price,
• value of the goods delivered or services performed, covered by the transaction, without the tax amount (net sales value),
• tax rate,
• the sum of the net sales value with the division into sales subject to individual tax rates and sales exempt from tax,
• the amount of tax on the sum of the net sales value, broken down into amounts related to individual tax rates,
• the total amount due.

Importantly, to be able to consider the document as an electronic invoice, in accordance with point 32 of the above-mentioned recipe, it must be issued and received in any electronic format. The choice is up to the taxpayer. Therefore, an e-invoice can be e.g. an e-mail with an attachment in PDF format or a fax received by e-mail.

 

Attention! It should be remembered that when a document was prepared using a special accounting program or a text editor, and then printed and received by the buyer in paper form, the taxpayer is dealing with a paper invoice, not an electronic one.

 

Similarly - paper documents that have been scanned and sent via e-mail will be considered e-invoices, provided that their paper version has not been placed on the market.

When is an electronic invoice issued?

At this point, it is also worth mentioning what should be understood by issuing an electronic invoice. Well, in order to be able to recognize the above the document issued, the seller (or buyer / service recipient in the case of self-invoicing) must make it available in such a way that its recipient can receive it. In the case of e-invoices, these conditions can be met by e-mail, secure connection or sending them via the web portal.

On the other hand, an electronic invoice is received when it reaches the recipient. This moment can be considered, for example, downloading it from an internet portal or the receipt of an e-mail containing the invoice on the recipient's mail server.