Re: [ubl-dev] UBL Credit Note vs. UBL Negative Invoice

[Kenneth Bengtsson <kbengtsson@efact.pe>]

Hi Svante

 

The UBL Invoice and the UBL Credit Note are both based on the reusable components of the UBL Common Library (as do all other UBL documents). So I think that the âadditional XML boilerplateâ from having two schemas is very limited, even though the invoice and credit note documents are, by nature, somewhat similar.

 

I think that it would be important to be able to identify an invoice document from a credit note. That alone should be sufficient argument for having two different document types. Using an UBL invoice as a credit note document would be somewhat similar to receiving a paper credit note that said âinvoiceâ in the header and then having to read through its content to be able to identify it as a credit note.. I canât imagine that being common practice.

 

Having ânegative credit noteâ is very common in some countries. They call this a âdebit noteâ (being a different document and with a different definition from the âUBL Debit Noteâ), and it is not similar to an invoice. It is used to raise the payable amount of a related invoice in the same way as the credit note is used to lower it. I donât know if this is used in Europe, but it is common practice in most Latin American countries. And yes, I have often wondered (and asked) why they canât just issue a new invoice. I understand that this is due to local fiscal legislation.

 

/Kenneth

 

 

 

From: Svante Schubert <svante.schubert@gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, October 1, 2020 at 4:35 PM
To: "ubl-dev@lists.oasis-open.org" <ubl-dev@lists.oasis-open.org>
Subject: [ubl-dev] UBL Credit Note vs. UBL Negative Invoice

 

Dear developers,

 

I am new to the list, since decades working on ODF, but since a few years as well on EU e-procurement.

Recently I became an editor of CEN TC 434 (EU eInvoice standard) working group 1, which is focusing on the e-invoice semantics.

 

We discussed this week the usage of a UBL invoice with a negative amount, which is used in Netherland and Denmark. This negative invoice is equal to a Credit Note.

On the other hand, the CEN TC 434 decided last Wednesday not to allow a negative Credit Note (which would be similar to an invoice).

Now someone mentioned, that there might be still lines within a Credit Note with a negative amount as long the total is not negative. 

To be honest, I am getting kind of confused. ;-)

 

Although I was in the beginning surprised by the idea of using a negative invoice as a Credit Note, I do like this way as an easy implementation without additional "XML boilerplate". 

Could you provide me please with some background/references of the reason to create a set of XML for Credit Note instead of allowing negative invoices?

I might even give the likely heretical suggestion to drop the complexity of additional XML for a Credit Note in favour of using negative amount invoices to lower the complexity of the system.

 

What do you think?

Svante