Frequently Asked Questions for e-Invoice

• Those who have mineral oil license within the scope of petroleum law no. 5015 and taxpayers who have a turnover of 25 million Turkish Liras or more in 2011 calendar year,

• Companies that manufacture, build or import the goods defined in the list (tobacco products, alcohol and carbonated drinks) attached (III) to the Special Consumption Tax Law, and companies that have a turnover of 10 million Turkish Liras or more by the end of 2011 will use the e-Invoice application as mandatory.

According to the Tax Procedure Law, e-Invoice can be issued back up to seven (7) days. However, it is technically possible to send e-Invoices which are older than 7 days (cannot be prevented by private integration systems) with a procedural penalty. Responsibility for all e-Invoices sent in this manner shall lie on the issuing taxpayer.

In order to avoid any problems with paper invoices, the invoice amount must be stated in written form. However, since it is not possible to change the figures on an e-Invoice because it has been signed with an electronic certificate, it is not necessary to specify the amount in written form.

If you only registered to e-Invoice, printed invoices will be issued to other taxpayers who are not a part of the e-Invoice system.

invoice and application responses that are sent to the recipients via RA e-Invoice system and completed successfully cannot be canceled or disregarded. If a commercial invoice has been sent, the recipient may be asked to reject it, but if an acceptance response or a basic invoice has been sent, a return e-Invoice must be issued by the recipient. For the basic invoices, if it is not accounted by the recipient, cancellation transactions can be performed through notary or REM (Registered Electronic Mail) channels.

It can be used but invoicing parties must have agreed in advance to be able to issue commercial invoices. In the commercial invoice scenarios, unlike the basic invoice, the invoice can be responded to as accepted or rejected via the application.

Since the basic invoice cannot be rejected via the e-Invoice system, the invoice can be recorded to accounting and then a return invoice may be issued or you can notify that you have not accepted the invoice and that you have not recorded it in accounting through official channels.

Invoices with the amount 0 can be issued with a 100% discount and 0 VAT.

Recipients are required to record the e-Invoices delivered to them in the basic invoice scenario. e-Invoices received in this way cannot be disregarded. However, if the Basic Invoice does not belong to them or they don’t accept it, they may reject the invoice. You can reject the invoice in two ways; by recording it and sending an cancellation e-Invoice or by objecting to it through notary.

The use of e-invoice is obligatory among taxpayers registered in the system and there printed invoices issued to a taxpayer in the system are declared null and void.

No, there aren’t. If the taxpayer has not transitioned to using e-Invoice even though it is mandatory, the sender is obliged to issue an e-Archive invoice if they are an e-Archive taxpayer. If the sender is not an e-Archive taxpayer, they may issue printed invoices and the sender is not subject to any sanctions in this case. In such cases, the responsibility rests with the recipient.

8 digits after the comma and 2 digits after the total sum should be used for an invoice to pass the RA checks.

Taxpayers can work with more than one private integrator at the same time, but they have to use different sending unit-mailbox labels and invoice series for their tax ID number-TRINs in each system.

e-Invoice application can only be used as one method at a time. Currently, once the first private integrator tax ID number-TRIN and tag record of the taxpayer is sent to the RA system and activated, RA closes the RA Portal account of the taxpayer. After the activation, the RA Portal account can be accessed for a period determined by RA to access old envelopes, invoices and application responses, but no new submission or reception can be made. For this reason, taxpayers should download all invoice and application response envelopes in their RA Portal accounts before their transition to the private integrator and keep them in their own systems or in the private integration system. After the RA’s transition to private integrator, the option of reducing portal access times or turning it off completely is made available.

In case of all the private integrator registrations of the taxpayer is cancelled, the RA Portal account reopens automatically.

Within the scope of the obligation, the penalty provisions of the Tax Procedure Law will be applied to the taxpayers who do not make transition to e-Invoice application on the specified date.

It will be sufficient to close the integration accounts with a petition to RA and make a new application using their electronic certificates through the agreed private integrator.

e-Invoice taxpayers who use the new generation payment recording device are required to fill in the information slip details in the relevant fields of the e-Invoice. If any information is entered in one of the PRD Information fields, the system will prompt for the other fields to be filled in. It will not produce an error if nothing is entered in PRD information. e-Invoice registered users who use new generation PRD legally are required to write the Date, Slip No, Z No, new generation PRD Serial Number information on the invoice. It is not technically necessary to enter the new generation PRD Information Slip details in the portal.

If the invoice is not an invoice issued within the scope of exception, SALES invoice type should be selected and 351 'Other Exceptions' code should be selected. If an invoice is issued within the scope of Exception, the invoice type of EXCEPTION should be selected and the corresponding code should be selected according to the exception type that corresponds to the VAT Legislation.

The integrator company that the receiving company works with should be determined. The recipient of the respective envelopes may be working with a different integrator company. For this reason, information regarding the recipient integrator company should be obtained from RA.

The integrator company that the receiving company works with should be determined. The recipient of the respective envelopes may be working with a different integrator company. For this reason, information regarding the recipient integrator company should be obtained from RA.

The invoice ID number is the 3-digit unit code and the first four digits of the next joint number indicate the year the invoice was issued and the remaining nine digits indicate the joint number. Private Integration and Integration taxpayers can use multiple series within their organizational structures. In this case, each series must ensure number/date sequence within itself.

In the e-Invoice application, since each series will be arranged in their own consecutive order, for skipping invoices;

- Skipped numbers should be canceled if your software allows it.

- It is necessary to give a petition explaining the situation to the related Tax Office Directorate. You can continue issuing new invoices using the same serial number without skipping the last invoice number and using the consecutive numbers you omitted. The e-invoice application is subject to the same provisions as the printed invoice.

You should notify the Administration about interruptions in the system that do not exceed two days and the reason for the downtime by sending an e-mail to efatura@gelirler.gov.tr.

Taxpayers who use the e-Invoice application are obliged to send and receive e-Invoices to registered users after 7 days following the activation of their accounts. Companies newly registered to the e-Invoice application are obliged to issue and receive e-Invoice after 7 days following the declaration in the 'Registered Users List', but other registered users are not obliged to send e-Invoices to the newly registered users within this period.

e-Invoice is an invoice application in which data formats and standards are determined by Revenue Administration (RA) and invoice exchange is realized through the RA system. The required elements included in an invoice according to Tax Procedure Law are the same for e-Invoice and e-Invoice is not a new type of document and has the same legal qualities as the printed invoice.

-Companies that transition to the invoice application within the scope of the obligation or voluntarily are required to make an electronic application at www.efatura.gov.tr.

It is mandatory to specify the method that will be used for the e-Invoice application in order to be able to use it.

There are three methods to use the e-invoice application:

- Using the RA e-Invoice Portal: You can send and receive e-Invoices using the internet-based RA e-Invoice Portal. This method is not very convenient for mass invoice submissions. Therefore, it is suitable for companies with relatively lower invoice traffic.

- Using Private Integrator: The e-Invoice application is utilized by using the Information Technology Systems of companies who acquired private integration permissions from RA.

- Using Information Technology Systems integration: Users with adequate information technology systems can use the e-Invoice application directly through their own information technology systems provided that they offer the necessary integration.

Regardless of the method that will be used, an electronic certificate to be used for e-Invoice approval must be provided prior to the application.

The e-Invoice is subject to the same rules as the printed invoice. According to Article 215/2-a of the Tax Procedure Law; ‘Turkish currency is used for all registration and documents. The documents may also be issued in foreign currency, provided that they are shown in Turkish currency. However, documents issued on behalf of customers abroad are not required to display the amount in Turkish currency.’

If the retailer and the receiving party are both registered to the e-Invoice system, the issued invoice must be issued as an e-Invoice.

In the Official Gazette No. 27512 dated 5 March 2010, the procedures and principles regarding the Electronic Invoice Application have been determined by the publication of the General Communiqué No 397 Tax Procedure Law. Electronic certificate/electronic signature is mandatory in the e-Invoice application. Taxpayers who want to use the e-Invoice application using the portal method are required to log in with the electronic certificate/e-signature.

As stated in the Private Integration Guide, the updated list of current registered users for mailboxes is published at https://merkez.efatura.gov.tr/EFaturaMerkez/userList.jsp. The web service where registered users can be queried is only available to users who are integrators.

The Administration plans to have the registered user list updated at specific intervals. However, currently no time intervals and effective dates are set.

With the upload mechanism, uploads can be done as specified in the portal user manual. Each invoice must be created in .xml format and multiple invoices sent to one recipient can be sent in a single envelope.

Taxpayers who wish to use the e-Invoice Application by the integration method may request that their portal accounts not be created until the integration process is completed.

Taxpayers are not obliged to submit their e-Invoices according to a single invoice scenario. They can send e-Invoice to their customers using commercial or basic scenario types. Accordingly, some of the created e-invoices can be commercial and some of them can be basic scenario types.

Any company may make transition to e-Invoice. You can voluntarily transition to e-Invoice even if you are not within the scope of the mandatory e-Invoice transition determined by the Revenue Administration (RA). In short, there is no turnover restriction for companies willing to voluntarily use e-Invoice.

Within the scope of application, the company has to start using e-Invoice within 7 days after being published in the list of registered users. You have no responsibility during this time if no transaction that requires the issuance of an e-invoice happened and no electronic invoice has been issued. After 7 days, e-Invoice must be issued to all taxpayers whose names are listed in the registered users list.

In mergers, the legal entity of the company to be absorbed will be abolished. In such a case, a petition must be sent to the Revenue Administration with legal documents indicating that a merger has taken place. The e-Invoice application and the obligation of use for the company whose legal entity has been abolished will be terminated by the Revenue Administration.

Technically there are no mechanisms that prevents the e-Invoice from being issued retrospectively. The legal responsibility of the time period belongs to the companies.

It is not enough that the RA received the invoices. The invoice process is completed when the sender receives confirmation that the invoice sent reached the recipient’s mailbox. System responses and invoice status need to be checked.

Commercial invoices must be responded to (Accept / Reject) within 8 days. Invoices without a response are deemed accepted by law. If the commercial invoice is not rejected within 8 days, it will be considered 'Accepted':

- You can issue a return invoice if the situation COMPLIES with the provisions of the legislation.

- You can object to the invoice using external channels.

When you issue an e-Invoice, you can select the 'Withholding Invoice' invoice type and then add 'Corporate Tax Stoppage' item to the goods service items.

No matter what method the taxpayer company is using, they have the responsibility of keeping and declaring the e-Invoices. This obligation cannot be transferred legally or financially. Our recommendation to companies that became e-Invoice taxpayers with private integration method by signing a contract with a private integrator is that they retrieve their archives from their private integrator on a 6 months or yearly basis and keep them in their own environments. On the other hand, RA Portal users should download their e-Invoice backups from the portal quarterly and back them up in their own environment.

They are system messages in the e-Invoice application that contains the invoice or application response coming from RA and receiving systems and the process status of the envelope with the code included. The information that an invoice or application response has been successfully received by the end user through RA is forwarded to the sending system along with these documents.

All the UBL invoice, application and system responses sent are carried in an electronic document holder called an envelope. All envelopes contain the sender and recipient information (tax ID number-TRIN and tags), as well as the identifier number (UUID-Universal Unique Identifier) and creation time of the envelope.

It contains the tax ID number/TRIN information of the taxpayers registered to the e-Invoice system along with the system addresses that are divided into two as Sending Unit and Mailbox. Invoice is only sent from the Sending Unit (GB) tag (e.g. defaultgb@companyname.com). Mailbox (PK) tag (e.g. defaultpk@companyname.com) receives e-Invoices and sends application responses to incoming invoices. Taxpayers may have more than one GB or PK tags for the same tax ID number or TRIN.