E-invoicing
Exchanging invoices as structured data between the seller's and buyer's systems, rather than as PDFs or paper.
In short
- A PDF sent by email is not an e-invoice. The data has to be machine-readable, usually XML.
- Many countries now require it for business-to-business sales, often through a government platform or the Peppol network.
- Canada and the United States have no national mandate yet.
E-invoicing means sending an invoice as structured data in an agreed format. The buyer's accounting system can read every field without anyone keying it in. The supplier's system produces the file, it travels over a network, and the buyer's system receives the supplier name, invoice number, lines, taxes and payment details as data.
Why a PDF does not count
A PDF looks like an invoice to a person, but to software it is a picture of one. It still has to be scanned, read and checked. A true e-invoice follows a standard such as UBL or the European EN 16931, and it is often exchanged over Peppol, a network that works a bit like email for invoices: each business has an address and an access provider.
Where it is required
Governments like e-invoicing because they can see sales tax as it is charged. Italy has required it for domestic business sales since 2019, Belgium since January 2026, and France began phasing in its requirement in September 2026, starting with the obligation to receive e-invoices. Several other EU countries have dates set. In Canada and the US it is voluntary, although large buyers increasingly ask suppliers to send invoices this way.
Worked example
What the buyer's system receives
A supplier bills $4,520 for 400 cases at $10 plus 13% HST. With e-invoicing, the buyer's accounts payable system receives the supplier's business number, the purchase order reference, one line of 400 units at $10.00, $520 of HST coded to the right tax account, and net 30 terms. It matches the order and receipt automatically. Nobody opens a file.