The state is once again unable to establish good relations with taxpayers, blaming them for the bottlenecks it has created by rudimentary management of the implementation of electronic invoices, say representatives of NextUp Solutions, one of the software companies.

According to the quoted source, the system has created the biggest chaos in the last decade in the business environment, the Romanian state is not ready to manage the changes it imposes and shows incompetence in digitalization due to the numerous mistakes of this system.

“By implementing RO e-Invoice, government institutions intend to stick a stick in the taxpayer, threatening fines in case of non-compliance with the system. At the same time, ANAF is not ready for the wave of tax information to come, not even remotely ready. The existing infrastructure is stuck at even 25% of the stated reference documentation,” said Roxana Epure, managing partner of NextUp Solutions.

Moreover, she said, currently the existing system does not even receive correctly sent invoices, duplicating documents on the SPV account due to erroneous sending.

“Despite the state’s promise of efficiency and simplification of administrative processes, the introduction of the e-Invoice system in the first month of the year created a great deal of chaos. Contrary to the repeated assurances of the authorities, it seems that the state was not prepared for the huge amount of information and transactions that need to be managed with the help of this initiative, and to manage the changes that it imposes,” Epure also stated.

At the same time, in her opinion, due to errors generated by the system, the state demonstrates incompetence in digitalization.

“All this creates a distrust of the tax authority on the part of the taxpayer, and the level of frustration is even greater as officials constantly announce fines, fix dates and remove any blame for the failure of the system. That is, we strike without explaining what we are punishing the contractor for,” explained Roxana Epure.

According to the release, due to the implementation of e-Invoice for B2B invoices, companies across the country faced a number of technical and administrative problems. Thus, the errors created by e-invoicing have disrupted many businesses, wasting valuable time and money transferring invoices in a Virtual Private Space (SPV) instead of keeping day-to-day operations running efficiently.

Thus, amid the challenges caused by the introduction of e-invoicing, many companies have accelerated the digitization process by requiring invoicing software that automatically transfers invoices to SPVs. As a result, demand for invoicing software increased by more than 50% in the first two weeks of January alone.

“The exponential demand for invoicing software in January is, among other things, a consequence of the introduction of e-invoicing from 1 January. Sure, you can do the manual work, but no one wants extra red tape in their backyard. An entrepreneur wants to work cleanly, wants predictability in general and especially with regard to the costs of bureaucratic red tape. Electronic invoicing is generally a good move, we’ll know about this reporting at some point, but there’s no need to do anything about it because the software does it. Finished. The entrepreneur wants. The accountant does. The state promises us, but blocks it with its powerlessness. And threatens fines after March 31. Many conversations, no results,” explains the representative of NextUp Solutions.

What entrepreneurs go through in order to issue invoices in the system of the Ministry of Finance

Manually filling in data for each invoice on the ANAF website can take up to 10 minutes, depending on the number of lines on the invoice and the user’s ability to quickly fill in the required data.

Each invoice issued by a taxpayer must be uploaded to the SPV. Without software, this is done as follows: for each invoice issued, you need to convert the PDF to XML, then access the SPV and upload the XML to the SPV.

The SPV will also need to access and frequently check for invoices expected from suppliers – each invoice will need to be downloaded in XML format and then converted to PDF format.

This will significantly complicate the work, especially since this entire troublesome process will have to be carried out within 5 days from the moment of issuing the invoice in order to avoid possible fines.