Mexico eInvoicing – End of 2012 Updates to CFDI

As always, there are constant changes and alterations to the laws for Latin America electronic invoicing. And, well we expect to see more out of Mexico towards the end of the year — here are some of the key amendments to the 2012 legislation that came out in September of 2012.

1. Regimen fiscal to be mentioned in the “comprobantes” is repealed. The field still needs to be in the XML, but value can be N/A or any other word that means the same (Example: No Applica).
2. Unit of measure. It will be possible to use any unit of measure in the “comprobante” based on the commercial needs. No particular value is required.
3. Method of payment and the last 4 digits of account number are no longer required. (if not available or if the customer does not want to disclose they can use N/A or any word with the same meaning “No Applica”, “No Disponible” etc)
4. The SAT will have a free solution for the emission of CFDI documents that will work without a PAC intervention. (available starting 10/1/2012) – This is a web portal where individual invoices would need to be manually registered.
5. Partial payments: This rule remains the same for CFDI.
6. Shipping requirements still the same. Shipments still need to be accompanied by the printed CFDI.
7. The legacy CFD process is still allowed for the time being.

There are two take aways that I see here: the validations arebeingloosenedand the government is moving more towards CFDI. In past blogs, we have discussed that the Mexico SAT seems to be on a similar path taken by the Brazilian SEFAZ. So in all of this information, I think it is key to note the availability of a free portal for CFDI production. The government is approaching the smaller invoice producing community in a similar fashion as Brazil did by releasing a government run solution. This will help totransitionout the CBB which have been used by companies under 4 million pesos annually, and it sets a precedent of the government desiring and working towards 100% adoption of CFDI. With less than 10% of invoices transitioned to CFDI today, yourorganizationshould understand the implementation plan when the government makes the transition mandatory. It is expected that this transition to mandatory CFDI will occur in 2013 – which means larger companies should expect dramatic increases in the volume of electronic invoices they receive.