From July 2019, businesses will be required to send invoices to public authorities in the form of e-invoices in Estonia. An e-invoice is a machine-readable invoice in XML-format, which must comply with the Estonian e-invoice standard in Estonia. An e-invoice is not a PDF invoice. An e-invoice moves automatically from one system to another and there is no need to enter anything manually.

Standards for e-invoicing

E-invoicing has its own standards, which differ from country to country. If you want to send an e-invoice outside Estonia, you will have to send an e-invoice according to Estonian standards, but e-invoice operators will process this e-invoice themselves according to foreign standards. E-invoices are sent to the recipient as an XML-file in their business software.

SimplBooks offers free e-invoicing to all micro and small businesses. This means that if you don’t want to receive e-invoices and only need to send a few e-invoices a month to public authorities, you do not need to sign a contract with a separate operator – send them directly from SimplBooks. E-invoices can be exported and imported from SimplBooks as a file for both sales invoices and purchase invoices.

E-invoicing is an easier and faster solution than PDF invoicing

The process of sending an e-invoice is much easier and more convenient than with a PDF invoice. There is no need to enter data manually, because everything is already automatic for e-invoicing. E-invoices are machine-processed, ie the data is read directly into the software, which means that it is not necessary to send them by e-mail.

SimplBooks provides automatic entry for e-invoicing, automatic registration, and the only action you may need to take is setting up an expense account if necessary.

E-invoices are secure

Sending e-invoices is secure – the data is transmitted to the operator in encrypted form and can only be accessed by a person who has the rights to do so in the software. When comparing e-invoices with PDF invoices, sending PDF invoices by e-mail may be spam or not reach the person. Fortunately, there is no problem with e-invoicing. In SimplBooks, you can check if an invoice has been sent out.

Sending an e-invoice with SimplBooks

… is very Simpl! Log in to SimplBooks, create and save a sales invoice. Select “Send invoice” from the operations and from there you will have the opportunity to send an e-invoice! It is not necessary to enter the e-mail address, as the invoice will be forwarded through our operator to your customer’s operator. The control of the client’s e-invoice operator is performed automatically on the basis of the customer’s registry code. As an added bonus, sending e-invoices from SimplBooks is free!

Receiving e-invoice

To do this, SimplBooks has an integration with Envoice, Telema and Finbite billing center (formerly Omniva). To do this, you need to register as a user with the respective service provider in advance, and then the integration can also be activated in SimplBooks.