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Sales & invoicing

Electronic invoicing

Structured digital invoice creation, validation, exchange, reporting, or clearance according to the relevant market.

Workflow quick check

  • Which entity, market, and transaction type is in scope?
  • Is reporting real-time, periodic, clearance-based, or buyer exchange?
  • What evidence proves acceptance or delivery?
  • How are rejection, outage, and correction handled?

Meaning in day-to-day work

What does it mean in practice?

Electronic invoicing is the creation and handling of invoice data in a structured digital form that systems can validate and process. A PDF sent by email may be a digital image of an invoice, but it is not automatically a compliant e-invoice. Required formats, reporting, clearance, signatures, and archives vary by market.

Practical example

When a sale is confirmed, the system creates a structured invoice with seller, buyer, line, tax, total, identifier, and timestamp data. It validates the document, sends or reports it through the required channel, records the response, and retains the evidence.

From start to close

How does the workflow operate?

1

Confirm the rules that apply to each legal entity and transaction type.

2

Configure identities, numbering, currencies, tax codes, units, and document types.

3

Generate structured data from approved source records rather than rekeying totals.

4

Validate, transmit or report, and manage rejection and retry states.

5

Archive the invoice, response, corrections, and audit history for the required period.

Recommended controls

What protects workflow quality?

  • Unique document identifiers and controlled numbering
  • Schema, arithmetic, tax, and mandatory-field validation
  • Visible transmission, rejection, retry, and acceptance status
  • Linked credit/debit notes and tamper-evident archives

Common mistakes

What should teams avoid?

  • Assuming every emailed PDF qualifies as an e-invoice
  • Hard-coding one country workflow for every legal entity
  • Ignoring corrections, cancellations, downtime, and rejected documents

Build the concept map

Related glossary terms

From definition to implementation

Use the term to design a clear workflow, not just a feature checklist.

Review the user guide, then test roles, data, exceptions, and reports in a guided demo.