February 2024
Poland’s e-Invoicing Mandate Postponed Indefinitely Due to System Errors
On 19 January 2024, Polish Finance Minister Andrzej Domański unexpectedly announced that the implementation of their proposed national e-Invoicing mandate had been postponed indefinitely.
This marks the second time Poland has postponed the mandate, having previously pushed it back six months from an original timeline of January 2024 to July 2024.
The KSeF system has been operational in a “voluntary phase” since January 2022, and businesses had been reassured by the Ministry of Finance that the KSeF system was ready for full implementation. This makes the recent discovery of critical errors and concerns about the platform’s ability to scale to the expected volumes of invoices all the more surprising. While the Ministry had previously claimed the system was capable of handling 100 million invoices per day, it appears that this figure may fall short of the actual demand due to peaks in processing on the first and last day(s) of each month.
Given the risk that businesses would be unable to issue invoices in the event of a system failure, the ministry has prudently decided to pause the mandate. A comprehensive external audit of the system is now planned to evaluate the issues and formulate a plan to resolve them. Only after the audit is complete and a remediation plan is in place will a new timeline be announced. The Ministry made clear that this will not be in 2024.
KSeF remains available on a voluntary basis
It remains unclear whether the Ministry will take this opportunity to address the already well-understood deficits in the KSeF system, such as the inability to include attachments with invoices issued through the platform. This common business practice is currently unsupported by the KSeF system, leaving businesses with the unenviable task of sending attachments separately via e-mail or other means, and buyers having to reconcile these attachments with the invoice received via KSeF.
Simultaneously, doubts have been raised about the compatibility of KSeF with the European Commission’s planned ViDA (VAT in the Digital Age) reforms. While ViDA has not yet been approved, it seems likely to proceed eventually, leaving Poland with a pressing need to adapt KSeF yet again to meet the demands of the reforms.
Although the Minister’s decision may be pragmatically welcomed as a step towards ensuring business continuity, it also comes as a blow to the many enterprises who have already invested in technology to connect to KSeF.
However, OpenText obtained confirmation directly from the Polish Ministry of Finance that: “KSeF still works in an optional version, and you can use it. Taxpayers can still integrate their financial and accounting programs with the National e-Invoice System.” In other words, KSeF is still available to be used on a voluntary basis as it has been since January 2022, and Polish companies can continue to roll out their e-Invoicing solution leveraging KSeF.
A unique opportunity to explore the benefits of e-Invoicing
As we all know, there are significant benefits in switching to electronic invoicing, in terms of reducing the costs and effort associated with manual invoice handling. This leads to faster payments, improved cash flow, and better customer and supplier relationships.
For suppliers sending invoices to their customers, there remains an obligation to obtain consent from your buyer to switch to electronic invoicing. However, the buyer does not need to establish a direct API connection to KSeF in order to receive their invoices electronically. They can register to manually download invoices from the KSeF portal in either PDF, XML, or HTML format. Multiple invoices can be downloaded together in ZIP format.
Buyers receiving invoices from their vendors can proactively provide consent in order to begin receiving their invoices. It seems likely that larger suppliers will be keen to proceed with automated e-Invoicing due to all of the business benefits.
OpenText Professional Services Community Survey can assist clients by finding out which of their buyers are ready to receive e-Invoices via KSeF, and which of their larger suppliers are willing and able to send e-Invoices.
Businesses should therefore see this as an opportunity, rather than a setback. As governments recognize the complexity of national e-Invoicing regimes, businesses too must understand that this is going to be more complicated than they expect. This is especially true for multinational companies with entities operating in multiple regimes affected by the impending mandates not just in Poland but also Romania & Malaysia (2024 mandates), Germany, Greece, Spain, and Slovakia (2025 mandates), and France, Belgium, Croatia, and Latvia (2026 mandates).
This wave of impending mandates will drive incredible demands on businesses to modernize and digitize their entire order-to-cash and procure-to-pay processes in a very short space of time, and in a manner that facilitates far greater agility. An agile and robust global platform for electronic invoicing will be an absolute necessity in order to meet the requirements of multiple national mandates in a very short space of time.
Poland’s “voluntary option”, therefore, represents a perfect low-risk approach to trying and testing your e-Invoicing strategy and platform in advance of the next major mandate.
August 2023
Polish President signs legal act mandating the KSeF e-Invoicing system
On August 4, 2023, the President of the Republic of Poland endorsed an Act that introduces the obligation to issue invoices through the National e-Invoice System (KSeF). With the Act’s approval awaiting publication in the Journal of Laws, the final stage of the legislative process is underway. Once published, the Act will transition into a legally binding mandate, and the majority of its provisions will spring into action on 1 July 2024.
Presently, e-invoicing through KSeF is optional, coexisting alongside various traditional invoicing methods. However, the clock is ticking, and in less than a year (starting July 1, 2024), active VAT taxpayers based in Poland will be mandated to exclusively use KSeF for issuing invoices. This mandate will also extend to foreign entities possessing a fixed establishment within Poland’s territory, as defined by VAT regulations.
Prepare for the transition to the Polish e-Invoicing mandate
To ensure a smooth transition, the Ministry of Finance is preparing an information brochure detailing the final version of the FA(2) XML schema for e-invoices. In tandem, comprehensive technical documentation is in the works, encompassing critical aspects such as generating and managing collective identifiers for payments and QR verification codes.
We anticipate the release of the final versions of regulations outlined in the Act, notably concerning KSeF utilization and exemptions from the e-invoicing obligation. This transition will also prompt changes in other regulations, including those governing invoice issuance, as well as the precise scope of data to be incorporated in VAT-related tax returns and records. These regulatory adjustments aim to align existing frameworks with the requisites of e-invoicing. An initial step in this direction was taken on 7 August, with the publication of a draft amendment to the regulation governing KSeF usage.
As the clock ticks down to July 2024, businesses both within Poland and those with a fixed establishment on its soil need to gear up for the e-invoicing revolution.
OpenText Active Invoices with Compliance is already online and connected to the KSeF portal for customers wishing to prepare for the transition. In addition, our e-Invoicing mandate readiness check service is available to assist customers in assessing the output from their ERP/finance/accounting systems to ensure it meets the new legislation. Reach out to your OpenText account representative or contact us here.
July 2023
Polish legal wrangling around new e-Invoicing system
After the postponement of the mandate for e-Invoicing, the Lower House of Parliament in Poland (Sejm) passed an amendment to the VAT Act to support the plans for KSeF (the Polish e-Invoicing platform). However, the Senate voted to reject the amendment. This appears to be due to political conflict between the higher (senate) and the lower (Sejm) chamber of the Polish parliament.
Since the ruling party holds the majority of votes in the Sejm chamber they were able to overrule the senates rejection, effectively approving the KSeF legislation. The bill is now ready to be sent for final signature by the President in August 2023 with the intent to push forwards with the mandatory e-invoicing regime as from 1 July 2024.
February 2023
National e-Invoicing mandate postponed to July 2024
The Polish Ministry of Finance have completed a public consultation on new draft legislation surrounding mandatory e-Invoicing via the KSeF platform. The result of the consultation has been to postpone the implementation date of the mandate from 1st January 2024 until 1st July 2024, giving taxpayers a further six months to prepare. Penalties for non-compliance will come into effect as of 1st January 2025.
The draft legislation states that consumer invoices (B2C) will now be fully excluded from the scope of the mandate.
Further, a provision has been made for taxpayers to issue invoices outside of the KSeF platform in the case of technical failure on the taxpayer’s side as long as they are subsequently transmitted to the KSeF system the following day.
The complete statement in Polish can be found on the Ministry of Finance website and the referenced draft act is also available.
Finally, there is a public consultation on a new proposed schema defining the logical structure of e-Invoices. The specifications can be found on the website of the Ministry of Finance.
July 2022
New specifications for e-invoicing mandate released
The Polish e-invoicing is expected in 2024 so companies still have some time to prepare. Here are three important aspects of these new mandates.
Timeline and mode of inception
The Polish mandate imposes a “big bang” approach for both issuance and reception of e-Invoices. After an initial voluntary period, which already came into effect on 1 January 2022, the mandate comes into full force for all companies, regardless of size, beginning in the second quarter of 2023.
The exact inception date of the reform is not yet finalized, which, given the short lead time, is of course going to cause concern for companies operating in Poland. This lack of communication of an official date could lead us to suspect that the Polish system is still not fully ready – but only time will tell.
