How Do Electronic Invoicing And Tax Reporting in South Africa Work

At present, South Africa does not require e-invoicing or e-VAT reporting to be mandatory. The South African Revenue Service (SARS) is responsible for the oversight and implementation of electronic invoicing, and Value-Added Tax (VAT) reporting.

The SARS has implemented numerous rules and regulations concerning the requirements and conditions for utilizing electronic invoices. At the end of 2021, the South African government published a statute detailing the prerequisites for invoices issued by digital service providers registered for value-added tax purposes. This regulation took effect on December 10, 2021.

The requirements of the new regulation are more extensive than those of the previously applicable rules prescribed in Binding General Ruling 28 (BGR28).  These are some of the elements introduced in the regulation:

• Name and VAT registration number of the e-services provider
• Name and address (business, residential or postal) of the recipient and VAT registration number if the recipient is registered (e-mail address is no longer sufficient)
• Individual serial number
• Date of issue
• A complete and adequate description of the electronic services rendered
• The consideration in money for the supply in the currency of any country and whether the consideration is reflected in the currency of:
  • the Republic: The value of the supply and the amount of tax charged or a statement that the consideration includes a charge in respect of the tax and the rate at which the tax was charged; or
  • any country other than the Republic: The amount of tax charged in the currency of the Republic or a separate document issued by the electronic service provider to the recipient of the electronic services reflecting the amount of tax charged in the currency of the Republic and the exchange rate used.

In addition, electronic invoices must be stored for at least 5 years.

Achieve complete automation and integration of your invoicing processes

Thanks to EDI technology, it is possible to automate all the processes of both issuing and receiving for integration with the company's ERP.

Our solution integrates with your accounting system or ERP for the exchange of documents and structured messages. In the case of invoices, the module establishes connections with the internal system to integrate the issuance and receipt of invoices.

• Account Receivable: Allows the automation of messages from records generated directly in the company's ERP. In the process of sending invoices to customers, the solution transforms the data structures to the required standards (EDIFACT, X12, PEPPOL, UBL, ODETTE, XML EDI), technical and legal specifications of each country; and also implement the digital signature. This means that we are dealing with a compliance solution.
• Account Payable: The invoicing platform is designed to receive invoices from suppliers and ensure that they are compliant with the technical and legal standards of the country in which the receiving company operates. By utilizing sophisticated data restructuring techniques, electronic invoices are converted into structured data and incorporated into the customer's accounts payable system.

Advantages of Automated Payable - Automated Payable

1. Real time audit trail for the entire order to cash and procure to pay process.
2. Orders are sent in real time, reducing the response time of the supplier.
3. Automation of purchasing processes from the purchase order to the payment to suppliers.
4.  The scalability of the solution, which allows the implementation of personalized workflows for messages such as order receipt confirmation or shipping notices.
5. Control and traceability of shipment and order status by your suppliers.
6. Better management and cost savings. Thanks to the automation of processes, time reduction, error reduction and, ultimately, cost savings derived from the greater efficiency of the entire purchasing management process are achieved.
7. Supplier integration. The supplier portal allows full integration of suppliers even if they do not work with EDI solutions.

Corporate commitment to sustainability

The use of technologies in business production, applied to different areas of management and production, can address environmental, social and governance issues.

The implementation of e-invoicing systems has a demonstrable effect on reducing paper usage and related carbon dioxide emissions and fossil fuel pollution by eliminating the need for physical mail transportation. It has been estimated that the implementation of digital technologies can potentially reduce global CO2 emissions by approximately 15%.