The era of paper invoices is coming to an end. With the e-arşiv invoice system, you can issue an electronic invoice, even to non-registered e-invoice taxpayers. This regulation enables companies to send invoices directly to the end-user via e-mail removing the need for paper invoices.
Due to the official statement from the Turkish Revenue Administration (TRA), all taxpayers using e-invoice, intermediary service providers, online advertisers, and intermediary online advertisers mandatorily switched to the e-arşiv Invoice system from 1 January 2020.
It can be expensive and difficult to issue and archive traditional paper invoices which must be kept for at least 10 years. Stored in an electronic environment and easily accessed at any time, e-arşiv invoices substantially reduce such challenges. This is also an incentive for companies that aren’t currently in scope to use the e-arşiv invoice system.
Differences between e-arşiv invoice and e-invoice
While both applications issue invoices in an electronic environment, there are some basic differences:
E-invoice
- Issued to taxpayers registered in the system.
- It is a two-way application; includes sending and receiving invoices.
- Obligation to convert invoices to UBL-TR format before issue.
As the TRA is in the center of the system, there is no need to prepare a separate report and send it to them
E-arşiv invoice
- A one-way application. It only includes sending invoices.
- Can be issued in free format (e.g PDF) or UBL-TR.
- Obligation to submit daily e-arşiv invoice reports to the TRA.
- Issued to taxpayers not registered in the e-invoice system. According to the current regulation, companies not registered in e-arşiv invoice but that send invoices over 5000 TRY, tax included, to a taxpayer must also issue e-arşiv invoices.
E-arşiv invoice report
An e-arşiv invoice is sent directly to the end-user in hard copy or in an electronic environment. So, the TRA is not between the e-arşiv invoice and its recipient. Therefore, to access the data of e-arşiv invoices, the TRA requires companies to prepare e-arşiv invoice reports and send them daily to the TRA system. Companies that are registered in the application prepare the reports of all e-arşiv invoices issued that day in a format specified by the TRA and send these reports to TRA by the end of the next day.
The e-invoice application doesn’t require such reports because these invoices are first submitted to the TRA and then sent to the recipients after schema validation.
Can e-arşiv invoice printouts replace delivery notes?
If the necessary conditions are met, printouts of e-arşiv invoices can be used instead of delivery notes. In this case, there is no need to issue another delivery note. The conditions are:
- Providing it at the point of delivery
- Adding the inscription “Replaces delivery note” on the e-arşiv invoice
- Adding the date and time of issue to the e-arşiv invoice
- The seller or the authority must sign the printout
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