Tuesday 5th May, 2015

Spain’s autonomous regions (17 in total) are still struggling to provide eInvoicing services, after electronic invoicing became mandatory in January.

According to a report by Seres, an ICT service provider, services are limited in some regions, and three do not yet offer eInvoicing. Some regions use an eInvoicing solution (FACe) provided by the central government and 11 regions have developed their own eInvoicing software. The solutions are not always interoperable.

As of 15th January, companies based in Spain that deal with Spanish public administrations must submit all invoices over EUR 5000 electronically, although there are some exceptions.

Spain hopes to reduce the time spent on invoicing by 80 per cent.

According to Seres, there are also problems with the eInvoicing client software (Gestión de Facturación Electrónica) provided by the central government's Ministry of Industry. The application only works with FACe, and cannot connect to all eInvoicing systems in use across Spain.

FACe, the central solution for electronic invoicing, is developed and maintained by CTT, (Centro de Transferencia de Technologica), the government’s central IT solutions repository. The European Commission’s Joinup federated repository links to FACe, but the software is available only for public administrations with access to it.