Electronic invoicing

Requirement

From April 1, 2020, the law allows public administrations (B2G), and private companies (B2B) to require electronic invoices (e-invoices) from their suppliers in Finland in a format compliant with the Finnish TEAPPSXML 3.0 standard. This means that customers in Finland can reject e-invoices that are not following the European norm.

The EU VAT Directive 2006/112/EU requires that e-invoices may only be accepted upon agreement with the customer. Any exception to this regulation requires approval from the European Commission. Finland has circumvented the approval process with the EU by putting the onus on the customer.

Finland has historically been progressive when it comes to electronic invoicing (e-invoicing) - particularly in the business to business (B2B) sector. According to the State Treasury website, 92% of invoices exchanged with central government are already sent electronically today.

To expand the use of e-invoices in B2B transactions, the country has granted B2B buyers the right to receive a structured electronic invoice from their suppliers upon request. The scheme applies to all Finnish companies with a turnover above €10,000 and came into force on April 1, 2020. The law does not prohibit anyone from receiving invoices of different formats, but it does give the buyer the right to reject electronic invoices that do not contain the data fields specified in the Directive 2014/55/EU.

The TEAPPS e-invoicing format has been updated to version 3.0 to ensure compliance with the Finnish tax administration’s VAT tax invoicing requirements.

The main objective of the new Finnish e-invoicing requirement is to enhance public procurement in general and to further promote the active use of e-invoices. The law also states that all public procurement entities and private traders must ensure their ability to send e-invoices that comply with the European standard upon request.

M3 solution

Users can submit their invoices electronically in the required format using an integration with Infor Localization Services Platform (LSP).

Electronic invoices are handled using LSP and can be delivered using the TEAPPS 3.0 XML format.

For each issued invoice and regardless of the invoicing function used, an invoice BOD is created by M3 and can be viewed by users in 'Invoice Header. Open' (CMS500). Then the invoice BOD is published and sent to LSP using ION. LSP generates an .xml file with Forwarded status.

Configuration guidelines

Program ID	Program name	Description or comment
CMS500	Invoice Header. Open	All created and recreated invoices are displayed. See NCR 11227 for details about the process.

See "M3 configuration for electronic invoicing" in the Infor M3 Core Configuration Guide for Infor Localization Services Platform.