Electronic Invoices

← Invoice Management

When operating certain markets, your business may require to distribute electronic invoices – structured invoice data that is exchanged electronically between trading partners in order to automate accounts payable processing.

In particular, public institutions in the EU are required to accept and process electronic invoices. A set of common specifications and standards (Peppol) provides for interoperability between issuers and recipients across Europe.

To support public e-invoicing, JustOn Billing & Invoice Management can create electronic invoices in the XRechnung format (UBL syntax). These documents are to be distributed to their recipients via email.

Creating E-Invoices
Enabling App Access for JustOn Platform

E-Invoice Workflow

JustOn Billing & Invoice Management supports the following e-invoice scenario:

(1) The user invokes the e-invoice generation for a draft or open invoice.

(2) JustOn Billing & Invoice Management prepares the XRechnung XML file and validates it.

xrechnung_workflow

(3) On successful validation, JustOn Billing & Invoice Management saves the XRechnung XML file as an attachment to the invoice record. In case of validation failures, JustOn Billing & Invoice Management writes an error summary to the E-Invoice Error field and attaches a complete HTML error report.

When creating an e-invoice from a draft invoice, the produced XML file is prefixed with DRAFT_.

(4) The user sends the produced XRechnung XML file to the recipient.

E-Invoice Preconditions

Part of the business logic to produce e-invoices runs on the Heroku-based platform. So from a technical perspective, creating e-invoices requires the user to have access to the connected app JustOn Platform.

With respect to data, the following conditions must be met for JustOn Billing & Invoice Management to successfully create an XRechnung file:

Business entity
The invoice must specify a business entity. To avoid typos, use the button Set Business Entity, see Setting Business Entity.
Buyer reference
In addition, the invoice must specify a buyer reference.
  • When doing business with German public authorities (B2G scenarios), the buyer reference must hold the Leitweg-ID (a unique identification of the invoice recipient, see ZFB | eRechnung).
  • In B2B scenarios, you need to agree on a buyer reference with your business partner.
Unit and unit code
The invoice line item must specify a unit defined using the custom setting Quantity Units.
The quantity unit must define a code for the measurement unit applicable to the quantity. The code is expected to be one of the codes listed in UNECE Recommendation No. 20 "Codes for Units of Measure Used in International Trade" or UNECE Recommendation No 21 "Codes for Passengers, Types of Cargo, Packages and Packaging Materials", see UNECE Code List Recommendations.
Typical unit codes include, for example:
Measurement Unit Unit Code
Piece C62
Hour HUR
Kilowatt Hour KWH
(Page) Impression IM
Tax rate
The invoice line item must specify a tax rate defined using the custom setting Tax Rules.
The tax rule must define the tax rate, the business entity and the VAT Category Code. This is a code for categorizing VAT regulations, which is necessary for e-invoices, see UNTDID 5305 Duty or tax or fee category code.
Typical VAT category codes for businesses in Europe include:
Name VAT Category Code
Standard rate S
Lower rate AA
Higher rate H
VAT reverse charge AE
Free export, no tax G
Zero rated goods Z
Services outside scope of tax O
Margin scheme (second-hand goods) F
Margin scheme (travel agents) D
Required Fields
Make sure, in addition, that the following fields are set:
Object Required Fields
Invoice Invoice No.
Date
Business Entity
Buyer Reference
Account Name
Billing City
Billing Postal Code
Billing Street
Billing Country Code
Invoice Line Item Sequence
Quantity
Unit
Unit Code
Unit Price
Tax Rate
Business Entity Company
Tax ID
City
Postal Code
Country Code
Phone
Email Sender