Italy
Overview of Italy's requirements for archiving electronic documents, including VAT protocol numbers, Deposit Reports, preservation processes, and metadata reports.
In Italy, electronic documents must be archived after they have gone through a preservation process.
VAT protocol numbers
A VAT register needs to be created and maintained for all issued/received e-invoices. In addition, a VAT protocol number needs to be assigned to all Italian e-invoices in the VAT register.
The Hub can decide if the issued/received e-invoices are logged in a separate VAT register only, or if this information should be propagated to Sovos eArchiving. To propagate the VAT protocol numbers to Sovos eArchiving, the Hub may optionally use a CustomProperty with a label set to, e.g., "VatProtocolNo" and a value set to the VAT protocol number.
Rapporto di Versamento
The date and time it was deposited into the archive
A hash of the package at the moment it was archived (to ensure integrity)
The hash algorithm used to calculate the hash
To comply with this, Sovos eArchiving can be used by the Hub to produce a Deposit Report on a per-invoice basis, so long as the process is understood by the RDC -- which stands for Responsabile della Conservazione (Italian: Electronic Preservation Manager). To achieve this, the Hub should invoke StoreInvoice with "DepositInfo" populated within the AdditionalOutputs node, as this will instruct eArchiving to generate all the mandated information about the invoice within the response.
The response itself can then be used as the Deposit Report. For more information regarding the AdditionalOutputs node and how it can be used to satisfy this requirement, see Storing Invoices.
Preservation
Italian laws are strict when it comes to archiving fiscal documents. They require that all issued invoices regularly undergo a so-called preservation process. This means that the e-invoices are hashed, grouped in an archiving package, signed with a Qualified Digital Signature, and time-stamped by an accredited third-party Time-Stamping Authority.
As long as the Hub stores the invoices under the country code IT, these processes are carried out automatically.
Metadata Report
By default, Sovos eArchiving creates a metadata report, as required by the Italian legislation. The metadata report is a set of structured, mandatory metadata (XML) that needs to be stored alongside the invoice.
The metadata report differs for outbound and inbound transactions. So, the Hub must ensure the correct usage of the StoreFor parameters in the StoreInvoice call.