Счет-фактура: определение, виды и электронный документооборот.

Document issued by a seller to a buyer with terms of a sale transaction such as amount due
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An invoice, bill or tab is a commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer relating to a sale transaction and indicating the products, quantities, and agreed upon prices for products or services the seller had provided the buyer. Payment terms are usually stated on the invoice. These may specify that the buyer has a maximum number of days to pay and is sometimes offered a discount if paid before the due date. The buyer could have already paid for the products or services listed on the invoice. To avoid confusion and consequent unnecessary communications from buyer to seller, some sellers clearly state in large and capital letters on an invoice whether it has already been paid. From a seller's point of view, an invoice is a sales invoice. From a buyer's point of view, an invoice is a purchase invoice. The document indicates the buyer and seller, but the term invoice indicates money is owed or owing.

Invoices appear as one of the very earliest manifestations of written records in ancient Mesopotamia.

Some invoices are no longer paper based, but rather transmitted electronically over the Internet. It is still common for electronic remittance or invoicing to be printed in order to maintain paper records. Standards for electronic invoicing vary widely from country to country. Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) standards such as the United Nation's EDIFACT standard include message encoding guidelines for electronic invoices. The EDIFACT is followed up in the UN/CEFACT ebXML syntax cross industry invoice.

The United Nations standard for electronic invoices ("INVOIC") includes standard codes for transmitting header information (common to the entire invoice) and codes for transmitting details for each of the line items (products or services). The "INVOIC" standard can also be used to transmit credit and debit memos. In the European Union legislation was passed in 2010 in the form of directive 2010/45/EU to facilitate the growth of Electronic Invoicing across all its member states. This legislation caters for varying VAT and inter country invoicing requirements within the EU, in addition to legislating for the authenticity and integrity of invoices being sent electronically. It is estimated that in 2011 alone roughly 5 million EU businesses will have sent Electronic Invoices.

The XML message format for electronic invoices has been used since the inception of XML in 1998. Open Application Group Integration Specification (OAGIS) has included an invoice since 2001. The Open Applications Group (OAGi) has a working relationship with UN/CEFACT where OAGi and its members participate in defining many of the Technology and Methodology specifications. OAGi also includes support for these Technology and Methodology specifications within OAGIS.

There are two XML based standards currently being developed. One is the cross industry invoice under development by the United Nations standards body UN/CEFACT and the other is Universal Business Language (UBL) which is issued by Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). Implementations of invoices based on UBL are common, most importantly in the public sector in Denmark as it was the first country where the use of UBL was mandated by law for all invoices in the public sector. Further implementations are underway in the Scandinavian countries as result of the North European Subset project. Implementations are also underway in Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands (UBL 2.0) and with the European Commission itself. The NES work has been transferred to European Committee for Standardization (CEN), the standards body of the European Union), workshop CEN/BII, for public procurement in Europe. The result of that work is PEPPOL. There UBL procurement documents are implemented between various European countries. An agreement was made between UBL and UN/CEFACT for convergence of the two XML messages standards with the objective of merging the two standards into one before end of 2009, including the provision of an upgrade path for implementations started in either standard.

ISDOC is a standard that was developed in the Czech Republic as a universal format for electronic invoices. On 16 October 2008, 14 companies and the Czech government signed a declaration to use this format within one year in their products.

After implantation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in India, concept of e invoicing has been introduced for businesses with a turnover of more than Rs 5 crore from 1 August 2023. Now reporting of Business to Business (B2B) invoices for notified category of taxpayer. As of 2022, Business to Consumer (B2C) invoices are exempt from e invoicing.

Organizations purchasing goods and services usually have a process in place for approving payment of invoices based on an employee's confirmation that the goods or services have been received. Typically, when paying an invoice, a remittance advice will be sent to the supplier to inform them their invoice has been paid. Non payment and late payment of invoices is estimated to be the cause of 25% of corporate bankruptcies. To mitigate this, the European Commission has introduced the Late Payment Directive that sets a limit on businesses to settle their invoices within 60 days.