Direct electronic sales invoicing
Electronic invoice applications must include vendor inbox to customer inbox and must be able to upload a copy of the e-invoices to a government portal. Both parties must use the same software or standard format to exchange electronic messages. Alternatively, they can both use a third-party service provider, or the vendor can send the e-invoice to the customer through a government or tax authority portal.
Reliable audit trails for paper and electronic invoices are required for authenticity of origin, integrity of content, and legibility of invoices.
Saudi Arabia specifics
E-Invoicing will be mandatory as of December 2021. By January 2023, all invoices must be reported digitally to the tax authority. It is an electronic invoice clearance model similar to Turkey and Italy.
- Phase 1 - The generation phase is mandatory by December 2021. An invoice application must generate e-invoices, debit and credit notes, and include mandatory fields. The application must also be able to keep records of these documents externally. Taxpayers must submit archived electronic documents when the tax authority requests them. For simplified e-invoices, QR code will be mandatory.
- Phase 2 - The integration phase is mandatory by January 2023. API integration and transmission of e-invoices and e-notes to the tax authority portal are mandatory. The official reporting format is XML, and businesses must clear these invoices through the Saudi tax authority's online portal before the invoices can be issued to customers.
- Hybrid model, PDF document embedded with XML will be optional for sending to the customers. Cryptographic stamp will be mandatory for simplified tax invoices. QR code and UUID on all e-documents are mandatory.