Substitute storage for electronic invoices: here are its characteristics, its fundamental elements, and how it works.
Self-employment is as rewarding as it is demanding. The responsibilities of a freelancer are many, and naturally touch on various bureaucratic aspects. Among these, as is also the case for small and medium enterprises, there is also the sending of invoices to the Public Administration, and their storage for 10 years according to the indications of the law. With the arrival of electronic invoices, then, since 2015, the so-called electronic storage of invoices has been in place, allowing the various authorities to carry out checks even after a long time. In this guide, we will discover how this type of storage works for electronic invoices, as well as all of its features.
Preservation and storage of electronic invoices
Before analyzing in detail all the information to understand what electronic storage is and how it works, we must make an important premise. We need to distinguish between the storage and archiving of electronic invoices. Archiving is the action of saving a document on your computer or server in the format you prefer. Retaining, on the other hand, is the act of keeping the document compliant in case of possible inspection. To put it simply, preservation is the action of adhering to specific standards to maintain the value of the document over time, preserving its integrity, readability, and uniqueness. Fortunately, with some unique differences, the various e-Invoicing software currently available on PCs already perform document storage on their own.
Electronic Invoice Storage: How it Works
When we create an electronic document, it somehow “lives” in a digital environment. Substitute storage is a procedure within the same computer system that is particularly useful because it gives our “virtual” documentation legal value over time. In fact, in this way, the validity of the electronic document is identical to that of the corresponding document in traditional paper format. As you may have guessed, this particular type of preservation is indicated for documents such as electronic invoices, for which there is an obligation to preserve them for a period of 10 years. The system, with an intuitive and easy-to-use approach for any freelancer, keeps intact the legal value of uniqueness and integrity of the document we are interested in, while allowing for immediate indexing and searching in case of need.
Specifically, the electronic preservation process must ensure both the so-called bit preservation, i.e., the ability to preserve the bits as they were originally recorded, and especially the logical preservation, understood as the ability to understand and use the information contained in the document in the future. Substitute storage, also known as regulation-compliant storage, equates paper documents with electronic documents under certain conditions, and allows companies and public administrations to save on printing, archiving and storage costs. It saves companies and government agencies money on printing, archiving and storage costs, especially for those documents that, by law, must be stored for several years.
Substitute Storage: The Basics
Substitute storage of electronic invoices requires a few basic elements. The first is the creation of a digital invoice that can replicate the flow of structured data, usually in XML format, with identical information to the paper invoice. A qualified electronic signature must be attached to the electronic invoice, and the archive must be structured with precise data that are indexed for research purposes, such as the invoice number, the date or the customer’s VAT number. Also to be taken into consideration is the time stamp, i.e. an electronic certificate attesting to the date and time when the stamp is applied to the document, and which also determines its uniqueness and authenticity. According to our legislation, invoices must then be grouped into storage batches according to date, so as to ensure chronological continuity and group all invoices created in a temporal year.
With the 10-year retention period required by law, each batch is specially marked and signed by electronic signature using a certified system that guarantees the exact moment at which the marking occurs. The objective is to fix the batches in content, form and time with signature and time stamp. Once the electronic invoice is issued and digitally signed, it is recorded and indexed following the criteria described so far. Usually the software, as in the case of Aruba, applies a time stamp that certifies the author of the document, its legal integrity and the information contained therein, and finally goes to store it in the correct storage lot.