Recently I had to prepare a presentation regarding nota fiscal for the global IT area of my company. It looks silly for those who are used to Brazilian location to talk about that topic but I noticed that people from abroad can find difficult to understand the concept of nota fiscal and its difference from the invoice. So I think it worth blogging here some of these basic concepts.
In Brazil “Nota Fiscal” is the document necessary to goods transport and calculation of taxes. The “Nota Fiscal” is mandatory and any assets or goods provided must be accompanied by it. “Nota fiscal” is not the same as the invoice since it is created by their own transaction and not via form.
Sales in Brazil can be divided in two different groups that require different solution; one is service sales and the other goods sales. These divisions are necessary because there are two tax authorities responsible for authorizing the “nota fiscal”.
For service each city has their own rules for the invoice creation. This lack of standardness required companies to have a solution for each city where they are present. Since there are more than five thousands cities and Brazil there is no SAP standard solution for all the cities.
There are fiscal texts that must be in the nota fiscal, these text are necessary for the authorities to identify the rules applied that the “nota fiscal” and justify in case of tax exception or exemption.
