Argentina Electronic Invoice eFactura (overview)
Argentina is one of the Latin countries which have electronic invoicing. Also based on Government (AFIP) rules and regulations, it differs from Brazil’s Nf-e in many aspects.
For every company which issues invoices with VAT, the law obliges them to generate the documents below in the electronic method:
- Invoices or equivalent documents class A
- Credit nodes and debit notes class A
Companies can OPTIONALLY create the electronic version of the following documents:
- Invoices or equivalent documents class B
- Credit nodes and debit notes class B
Although this Fiscal program has started in 2006, making it mandatory took the Government great effort. Besides, the different commercial channels and communication methods were other aspects that made the implementation take so long. Thus, the level of validation over the XML file sent to AFIP is not high. This is a slow growing trend.
In order to issue an electronic invoice (eFactura), the companies must request a digital certication called Fiscal Key. With this fiscal key in hands, the company can be an electronic issuer. Later, the company will request authorization to issue each invoice. This authorization is requested to AFIP (Administración Federal de Ingresos Públicos), the Government Tax Entity. Such authorization comes as an electronic certification number, called CAE. No invoice can be released to customers without the CAE number applied to it.
This CAE number can be gathered in two ways:
– Normal: which means, doesn’t matter the communication method, every invoice should have one
– Anticipated: which means, the company can ask for a certain number of CAE numbers according to its need, for 15 days. Then, after this period, the company has to inform how many of those numbers were really used through a report, and optionally, request for more.
Another determining aspect when configuring a company’s scenario in eFactura is the regime. A regime determines the tax contribution model that applies to the company. Two major ones are:
- R.E.C.E. à Regime de Emissión de Comprobantes Electrónicos – http://www.afip.gob.ar/fe/#rece
This is the most adequate model for large contributors. It is based on web services, with no limits. - R.E.C.L. à Regime de Emissión de Comprobantes en Línea – http://www.afip.gob.ar/fe/#recl
This is the most adequate model for companies with no more than 100 tickets/month.
Sorry if this info is still too high level. My intention is to blog more on this subject. But, please, feel free to ask for more detailed information.
Thanks a lot!
Prasanna Kedilaya
It's a grat pleasure to have fellows from India interested in such specific location.
Actually, there's much more about this subject to be posted but, in advance, I can assure you that, it won't get as complex as Brasil's Nfe. In Brazil, Nfe is part of a Fiscal Big Brother Program and, particuarly Nfe will grow to 2G with lots more complex scenarios.
So, the farthest I can see for e-Factura is to have around 80% monitoring of Fiscal transactions.
Regarding SAP, i have constant contact with the Local Process Owners and, I can say they work hard to keep up with the compliance demmand - regulations (RG - Resolución General) from the Government may be created almost 1 month before it's mandatory date.
Full-webservice communication and system instant update is the ideal scenario one can reach nowadays!!
Feel free for any other quesiton you may have!
Thanks, have a nice day!
We are in the process of designing the process for RECE CAE solution for 1 of our client out of argentina and we are stuck at the following stage
1. SAP standard solution doesn't supports Vendor documents in its program to generate Annexure III
2. How do you deal the invoice reduction scneario with parking (as the corresponding credit memo is not generated until its posted)
Your views on the above please
Karthik
sorry for taking so long answering you. Here in Brazil, projects are in a real rush!
Your questions, in case you still need the answers:
1. SAP standard solution doesn't supports Vendor documents in its program to generate Annexure III
Credit/Debit notes issued from MM are not supported by RECE CAE solution.
In fact, RECE is limited in regards that it doesn’t work for documents generated in an automatic process like Credit/Debit Notes from Exchange Rates Differences, Rebate Agreements, Cash discounts, etc.
They key point is that this automatic process not only generates the documents but also automatically posts them in GL. But RECE requires the document to be parked before its process to get the CAE.
2. How do you deal the invoice reduction scneario with parking (as the corresponding credit memo is not generated until its posted)
Parking document is a requisite in RECE to process a document (invoice, debit or credit memo). If the document is automatically posted into accounting, then RECE doesn’t consider these documents for electronic process.
I hope it helps!
Thanks,