The Finnish E-Invoicing regulations

published on 8 May 2024 | reading time approx. 2 minutes

In Finland, E-Invoicing was launched in the early 2000s clearly before other countries. As a result of the early launch, we modelled our own national E-Invoice message formats, Finvoice and TEAPPSXML, because there were no existing general models or standards. E-invoicing was originated by a number of message handling operators and banks. As a result, we also formed a national infrastructure for the transmission of E-Invoices: the Finvoice network between banks, and a network based on the bilateral connections between operators, the interconnection of which has been challenging from time to time. All in all, E-Invoicing in Finland has been a success story and its benefits are obvious. The digitalization of procurement communication is essential for Finnish companies’ ability to compete with other Nordic and European operators. Digitalisation plays a key role in creating a European single market.

The Finnish E-Invoicing law

The Finnish E-Invoicing law, which is in line with the EU E-Invoicing directive, requires companies to offer E-Invoicing to their customers since 1.4.2020. E-invoicing is an electronic form of invoicing, where the invoice is sent, processed and received in a machine-readable and fully digital format. An E-Invoice is also a structured invoice, which means that the content of the document is structured in a commonly agreed way (according to the standard), so that its information content is machine-readable and understandable.

With a structured invoice, the invoice recipient can easily and automatically process the invoice information, as the information does not need to be entered or scanned manually, for example, into the financial management system. E-invoicing enables automatic archiving of invoices and facilitates invoice tracking. E-invoicing speeds up invoice processing, eliminates manual steps and saves paper. It brings clear immediate benefits especially to those companies that have a lot of incoming invoices.

In Finland, the E-Invoice address information is maintained by Finnish E-Invoice intermediaries (operators and banks). The use of the E-Invoice address book is free of charge, as is the addition of company information to it. The E-Invoice address book data can be obtained by ordering a download right. The E-Invoice data can be ordered either as a one-time download or as a continuous download right. In a one-time download, you will receive a link through which you can download the file containing the data once within 24 hours of placing the order. In a continuous download, you will have continuous access to the data and you can download the E-Invoice address book data either as a file or through an interface. The E-Invoice address book information can also be downloaded for use on your own machine.

International invoices in Peppol network

The use of the Peppol network has expanded rapidly in recent years due to the EU directive on electronic invoicing (EU 2014/55/EU) and the CEN standard related to the implementation of the standard (FprEN 16931-1:2017). With the expansion of the use of Peppol, it has become one of the most noteworthy solutions for a transmission platform of electronic documents for trade between organisations.