Standard e-invoicing workflow
An overview of the document processing workflow to help developers integrating their applications with the Indirect Tax API.
While each country has unique processes and functionalities, there are common elements, which can give us a general overview of a typical workflow. With that in mind, use this information as a guide to understand the country-specific guides better, but do not rely on it for setting up actual production models.
Key entities
Key entities that typically participate in the e-invoicing workflow:
- Supplier
- Creates and sends documents and receives responses in the form of notifications.
- Sovos
- Handles document mapping, validation, signing, transmission, and archiving.
- Tax Authority
- Conducts schema and business validations, mapping, signing, and generates responses.
- Buyer
- Receives documents from the supplier or from the tax authority.
Process flow
The following diagram shows a typical process flow:
- Step 1: Supplier creates and sends the document
- The supplier creates and sends a Standard Business Document (SBD) to Sovos via a POST request to the Indirect Tax API. The SBD contains an invoice in the Sovos Canonical Invoice (SCI) format and a Standard Business Document Header (SBDH), which provides essential semantic information for routing, processing, and contextualizing the business documents.
- Step 2: Sovos maps the SCI into XML and validates it
- Sovos converts the SCI into the required XML format and performs a schema validation to detect any errors before sending the document to the tax authority.
- Step 3: Sovos signs the XML
- When required, Sovos signs the XML with a previously configured certificate.
- Step 4: Sovos Transmits the XML
- Sovos sends the validated XML to the tax authority's e-invoicing system.
- Step 5: Tax authority processes the XML and sends the response to Sovos
- The country's tax authority performs further validations, generates an approval or rejection response, and sends it back to Sovos.
- Step 6: Archiving (optional)
- The XML, application response, and any graphical representation (e.g., PDF) are archived compliantly.
- Step 7: Supplier retrieves the application responses and acknowledges them
- The supplier retrieves the application responses, which include status information and the cleared XML. After processing the responses, the supplier marks them as acknowledged.
- Step 8: Supplier sends the invoice to the buyer
- The supplier sends the signed invoice to the buyer, which is outside the scope of Sovos.