Structured e-invoices – Q&A

To answer this question, it is crucial to find out whether a foreign entity has a fixed establishment for VAT purposes in the territory of Poland and whether they are involved in a given transaction. It follows that the status of a VAT-registered taxable person in Poland is not the deciding factor in this case.  

As the MF underlines, the implementation of e-invoices will not affect Polish tax authorities’ practice in respect of examining the circumstances/criteria used in finding out whether a fixed establishment (FE) test is met or not (which, however, the taxable persons have not found easy to grasp so far); the MF does not plan to publish any other explanatory memorandum/general tax ruling in this respect. Another thing contemplated during the KSeF legislative work which the lawmaker gave up is the implementation of a publicly available label (on the so-called whitelist) showing whether a given foreign entity has an FE set up in Poland. As a result, the only reliable form of confirming a foreign entity’s and their contractors’ status in this respect is to file for and obtain an individual tax ruling.

Yes, a taxable person will be offered the self-billing option, i.e. the acquirer will be able to issue an invoice in the name of and for the supplier. Per the MF explanations, first the supplier will have to agree to the self-billing arrangement with the acquirer in the KSeF; once they do it, the acquirer or the entities authorised by the acquirer to issue self-billed invoices will make out e-invoices in the supplier’s name.

Per the current version of the schema, generally there is no option to attach any external files to an invoice issued in the KSeF. As the amendments to the VAT Act are now worded, attachments to invoices are planned for selected sectors, i.e. utilities, telecom services and other “master” (aggregate) invoices (the fuel sector only). In all other cases, all additional data affixed to an invoice so far (e.g. summaries of the goods supplied or reports) will have to be either sent independently of the invoice itself, i.e. outside the KSeF (e.g. by email), or an invoice issued in the KSeF will also be delivered outside the system along with the attachments. 

Alternatively, attachments may be placed and stored in a dedicated repository created by the issuer and, additionally, individual links to attachments may be added to the invoice made out in the KSeF to enable the recipient to quickly download and correctly match attachments with the invoices they accompany. 

What might indicate that attachments are available for an invoice is the “Additional data” node (up to 12 times for a single invoice). This item features the Key-Value tag pairs where any text values can be input. In this case, if the data to be provided in an attachment can be embodied in a text, the cited node may simplify things to some extent. What is not available is the option to match an e-invoice with a distinct file that is to serve as an attachment.

The first thing to note is that the KSeF law does not set out any new items to be included on an invoice. As a result, there is no requirement for the taxable person to provide information on their e-invoices which goes beyond the mandatory data required under the VAT Act. 

At the same time, the scope of information required for the e-invoice schema is broader than the data provided in the JPK_VAT, JPK_V7M or even JPK_FA files. 

Many fields in the schema of a structured invoice are optional fields, so leaving them with no data supplied will not cause any technical issue in terms of getting the file validated (the system will accept the invoice even if those fields are left blank). Per the MF replies, these fields also include the so-called optional invoice items not derived from VAT law; they are not forbidden but are fully discretionary. However, optional fields also include those designed for information required as content- (as in the case of the JPK_FA schema) or business-type data. With this in mind, in the course of making preparations for the implementation stage an essential thing is to correctly identify and classify the cited optional fields. 

Importantly, each e-invoice must reflect the logical structure (now FA(2)) and any possible errors (e.g. leaving some mandatory fields in the structure with no information filled in) will result in the e-invoice being rejected. It is also noteworthy that the structure features fields that will not become mandatory until the point when data is provided in specified tags/sequence areas (although they are generally optional) which include these fields, although they involve information not required by the VAT Act. As a result, if optional nodes are filled out in an invoice, the mandatory fields must be completed in this node to ensure that the invoice file is transmitted effectively.

Per the MF explanations, no change in the data on a KSeF invoice can be made unless a correction invoice is issued to rectify the error. As a result, to reverse the effect of an invoice that has been raised correctly (and was assigned a reference number in the KSeF), it should be adjusted to nil.

Generally, yes. However, one should not overlook those cases in which taxable persons are required by law to retain such documents for periods longer than 10 years, as the retention period of KSeF e-invoices will be 10 years. When this term lapses, the taxable person will have to ensure retention of e-invoices otherwise (in compliance with the standard requirements applicable for the retention of electronic invoices). 

It is worth noting at this point that the system gives the option of downloading invoices in bulk, which will certainly make the subsequent retention of e-invoices easier. However, please note that e-invoices will be downloadable in this way in XML format only. It follows that if PDF files with invoice images are to be generated in bulk, this will not be feasible using the standard KSeF functionality.

Yes, even if a taxable person is not ready to make out structured invoices, they have been in a position to receive invoices of that type since 1 January 2022 whenever their suppliers issued e-invoices in the KSeF. 

It is also noteworthy that the process of downloading e-invoices may also carry uncertainties and require that the company’s processes be adequately set up/adjusted.

Acquisition invoices will be downloaded by a given taxable person or the entity authorized by the taxable person for the purpose. This entity may be either the entrepreneur’s employee or the bookkeeping provider that has been given the authorization. Invoices are issued between entrepreneurs (companies), which means that access rights will be granted (and accepted) at company level. Importantly, the option will be available to restrict a user’s rights to specified operations only (e.g. the accountant/bookkeeping provider may access invoices only, with no authorization to issue them). 

What is also planned is the option of “anonymous” access to an invoice preview using a link to be provided by the invoice issuer/supplier through an API. Whoever has access to this link, whether they have a KSeF account or not, will be able to access the invoice. 

Furthermore, as the draft regulation now states, such anonymous access is first to be given to each entity to which various data identifying a given invoice is available, namely: 

• the identification number of the invoice in the KSeF; 
• a unique identification number of the invoice; 
• the NIP or other number identifying the acquirer or a note saying that no identification number is available; 
• the acquirer’s first name and surname or business name or a note saying that such data is not available; 
• the total amount owed.

Invoices raised in the KSeF will have to be corrected in the system. Any correction invoice raised otherwise (e.g. directly in the company’s financial/accounting systems) will not have any commercial or legal effect.

One of the first steps that are advisable is to make a tentative evaluation of how complex and complicated the process of implementing the new e-invoicing rules will be, namely how many and what business units will be affected, the volume of transactions documented using invoices and those for which invoices are not raised, but they do impact VAT accounts, the number of document types, how varied the business operations and the invoicing process are. Other important things include the volume of correction invoices, the frequency of annulling invoices, the type of data provided in attachments, the key or specific arrangements with contractors in terms of the invoice content. A key item that determines the difficulty connected with the implementation task is the level of detail of the internal documents flow and tax compliance procedures and the extent to which these procedures are actually followed. 

For multi-layered projects, it may often turn out that external assistance is needed, e.g. focused support in areas such as legal, tax compliance, system, IT or end-to-end support with comprehensive legal and business assistance along with project management. 

The scope of necessary work will certainly involve content-related issues to help the invoicing staff gain an understanding of how e-invoices work, examine internal procedures and systems in place to identify the areas in which to tailor them to the new requirements, along with an adequate data mapping involving the e-invoices schema and the company’s transactional data. 

An important item on the project agenda should also be getting in touch with the company’s contractors to discuss how to transition to e-invoices and make appropriate arrangements considering the actual circumstances of the business relationship between the parties.

In addition to the tax team, the project will require involvement of the people in charge of operating tasks and those responsible for booking acquisition and supply invoices. Invoices are often made out by sales and procurement staff who will be forced to modify their methods of working and be able to handle new invoices. What may also prove necessary is to modify the procedure governing the flow of documents within the organisation.

Another thing that may prove essential is to engage IT teams, experts in accounting/ bookkeeping systems, ERP system specialists and people in charge of contractor relationships, particularly at the point where invoices will have to be raised on external entities (e.g. in the self-billing process).

It is also necessary to tailor the company’s IT systems while maintaining the operating capabilities to carry out business processes and ensuring that the mapping of source data in the e-invoice schema reflects all the required transactions that the taxable person carries out in their business.

Engagement of IT staff and post-implementation system maintenance consultants is not unlikely, as they may be required to provide updates and respond to the MF’s changing requirements.

An aspect not to be overlooked is to embrace the changes at the system user rights level and ensure security in terms of data access rights. The taxable person should carefully choose the individuals to be granted the KSeF rights and the methods to ensure safety of the data transmitted to the KSeF to prevent its unauthorised use.

Data is mapped for the purpose of preparing financial and accounting systems for the issue of invoices in structured form. Data mapping requires the analysis of the systems, tax laws, and business needs, and the mapping process itself requires coordination of tasks of the tax-and-accounting team and those of the supplier of IT solutions. The purpose is to identify all the data in the financial and accounting systems which is to be included in an e-invoice made out by the entrepreneur. The mapping process may also extend for purchases; whenever the automation of inputting purchase invoices data is sought, this part of the process should also be mapped during the implementation stage.

In addition to the boxes required for technical reasons, entrepreneurs should also examine other fields to find out whether they are obligatory under the existing law (particularly tax law) and from the perspective of their business needs. Analysing the boxes businesswise is important particularly because there is no option to add any attachments to an e-invoice; it is not until all the fields in the schema are examined that the full scope of the data to be supplied in the new documents can be identified.

The data determined as a basis for making out an e-invoice should then be taken from the company’s financial and accounting system and matched with the particular fields in the FA(2) schema, in compliance with the technical requirements of the schema such as the proper data format or the maximum number of characters.

The current KSeF requirements reflect the specific features of VAT groups and local self-governments.

What is particularly noteworthy is the special rights given to centralised units within local governments as well as members of VAT groups. It is possible to grant an internal unit of a local government or a VAT group member as well as persons representing them certain limited rights.

These rights involve authorisation to: 

• manage the rights/competencies of a local government’s internal unit/member of a VAT group;
• restrict the right to inspect invoices to one specified entity only (a local government’s internal unit or a VAT group’s member). 

As regards the FA(2) logical structure itself, one should pay attention to the optional item named Podmiot3 (ThirdParty), which is to feature the data of all third parties other than Podmiot1 (Party1) and Podmiot2 (Party2) connected with the invoice. As a result, invoices issued to a VAT group as a taxable person will feature the data identifying the group, including the group’s NIP. In addition to the group’s data, they may feature particulars of the entities economically involved in the operations of the group (group members) as additional data provided in the Podmiot3 field. 

The purpose behind this solution is to continue the existing practice, which consists in providing data such as the particulars of the remitter, the recipient of the goods, the factor, the acquired company or VAT group members/ local government units on an invoice on a voluntary basis.

The implementation of the KSeF covers self-billed invoices. As the MF has explained, in this case the supplier will have to give the acquirer adequate authorisation in the system to enable the self-billing process. Within the self-billing procedure invoices will be issued directly by the acquirer and by entities with the acquirer’s authorisation to make out self-billed invoices in the KSeF. Additionally, the .xsd schema requires the invoice issuer to mark it with a tag which makes a document a self-billed invoice.