Entities taking part in public procurement in Poland are obligated to issue electronic invoices

From April 18th, 2019, all entities that participate in public procurement in Poland must accept electronic invoices. From this date on, invoice issuers do not have to ask permission to send an e-invoice - they can decide for themselves whether to send their invoices in electronic or paper form. The recipient is obliged to accept either of them. 

The new that entered into force on the basis of Directive 2014/55 / EU, not only improves the processes related to the exchange of electronic invoices, but is also aimed at promoting the use of such invoices by public administration entities. The goal is for there to be a reduction in both the amount of paper used as well as the costs associated with the process - it is enough to mention that about 400 billion invoices are issued every year around the world. Although Polish companies have been able to issue and receive e-invoices for many years, so far this form of document exchange has unfortunately not been practiced frequently - mainly because these invoices were manually entered into the financial and accounting systems, thus preventing automation of document flow. Now this is to change thanks to so-called structured electronic invoices.

What is a structured electronic invoice?

A structured e-invoice in Poland is, according to the new legislation, an electronic invoice as described in art. 2.32 of the VAT Act (an invoice issued and received in any electronic format), which meets the requirements that allow it to be sendt via the platform. These requirements relate primarily to certain EU standards and document structure that allow for the use of an electronic invoicing platform. Structuring is building an invoice in the xml format.

In addition to the data required by the VAT Act, a structured invoice should also contain additional data, which includes:

• information about the payment recipient,
• an indication of the public procurement contract.

Who does the new law effect?

The new law will apply to:

• public procurement, as described in art. 4.5, art. 5.5b, art. 4b par. 1 points 1-3, art. 5 and art. 6 of the Public Procurement Act,
• oncession contracts as referred to in art. 5.1.2 d of the Act on Cconcession Contracts (Article 3 of the Act).

How does the Electronic Invoicing Platform work?

It works as an IT platform that allows you to send and receive structured e-invoices. It gives the possibility of sending these invoices between IT systems, especially in the case of public procurement. The contracting entity must set up an account on the platform before the expected date of receipt of the invoice. This account is free of charge.

The Electronic Invoicing Platform should contain detailed organizational and technical documentation, including in particular:

• a description of how the platform operates and user instructions,
• descriptions, diagrams, instructions and other important information relating to structured electronic invoices,
• technical and organizational requirements for the account.

The Polish Electronic Invoicing Platform allows you to send and receive documents within the entire European Union.

The use of structured e-invoices is an important step towards the full electronicisation of the document flow in the public procurement process. However, it should be remembered that a structured invoice is not a document in pdf, scan or e-mail format. Its standard is determined on the basis of the European standard EN 16931-1: 2017. Contractors may send out e-invoices, but they do not have to. These documents do not require acceptance by recipients in the public procurement process.