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Although reducing VAT fraud is one objective of the future mandatory electronic invoicing reform in Europe, it has many other consequences and benefits.
Postponed until 2026 for small businesses, it is already used by public bodies and large companies facing new obligations in 2024 and 2025.
Whether your clients already require it or you are considering preparing early to secure every benefit for your law firm, here are a few explanations.
Electronic invoicing will soon be mandatory—but what is it?
Electronic invoicing is a European reform intended to extend the use of electronic invoices to business-to-business transactions, transactions with public authorities and, in certain cases, transactions between businesses and consumers.
It will gradually become mandatory for large companies, then mid-sized companies and finally microbusinesses and small and medium-sized enterprises. Local authorities have already rolled out the well-known “Chorus” system. It requires a new format, “Factur-X”, which we explain below.
Electronic invoicing is a further step in digitalisation—who in our professions still issues “paper” invoices?—extending the use of centralised, certified public or private platforms.
Its benefits include greater reliability: no more emails or letters lost deliberately or accidentally, a certified sending date, faster payments and, overall, greater efficiency in transmission, tracking and more.
For a law firm, a new administrative obligation might be a cause for concern. Yet it is more an answer to existing requirements: accelerating payments, reducing the time and staff resources involved, and monitoring payments more effectively.
If you use suitable software that is already prepared, none of this should be a nightmare—quite the opposite.
Example: electronic invoicing with the dedicated Tempolia software
Tempolia is time management and internal firm management software developed for lawyers and legal professionals seeking a solution that is easy to use, reliable and comprehensive.
It includes time management and the management of events within a matter, for example, and electronic invoicing is already integrated.
Whether your law firm bills by time spent or at a fixed fee, this type of online software manages disbursements, expenses, time and fixed fees to safeguard invoices and improve compliance. Tempolia generates PDF documents so that digital invoices can be sent by email or submitted to the dedicated IT interfaces provided for by the reform.
Making your invoices compliant “without the pain”
Tempolia already supports three factors in ensuring that your invoices comply with the reform:
- Digital delivery: Tempolia generates PDF documents for digital delivery by email or submission to IT interfaces.
- Electronic signature of the PDF document: this mechanism guarantees the integrity of an electronic document and authenticates its author by ensuring that it has not been altered between the time the author signed it and the time it is viewed.
- “Factur-X” compatibility: “Factur-X” means incorporating structured information produced by software. It is a standard format based on an extension of the PDF standard that includes a small supplementary structured file containing the invoice information.
With Tempolia, you can already submit your “Factur-X” invoices to Chorus Pro—the French State’s invoice reception platform—or to jefacture.com, which was then presented as a future PDP.
Firm staff do not need to perform these operations themselves: the software automates the procedure as far as possible.
Five benefits of electronic invoicing for your law firm
- Time savings: you can issue invoices in just a few clicks. Tempolia automates invoice creation, delivery and tracking, considerably reducing manual tasks, particularly for recurring invoices to the same client. You can therefore save time on fixed-fee and time-based invoices, reduce the demands placed on staff and even create invoices yourself where necessary, because the process is simple.
- Faster digitalisation of your billing: with little effort, you can move away from “old-fashioned processes”—billing in Word and Excel, with all the difficulties of managing numerous insecure files—and comply with new accounting obligations. Every invoice is stored in a secure, backed-up, centralised space. This considerably reduces the risk of error and enables reporting, extraction and more.
- Legal compliance and security: Tempolia supports compliance with legal standards and guarantees data security. Invoices receive an automatic electronic signature, while expense receipts are converted into signed PDFs so that they have evidential value in accordance with Article L102 B of the French Tax Procedures Code and the Order of 22 March 2017. All that remains is to transmit them.
- Improved cash flow: users can track the status of relevant invoices and analyse results by client or matter, partner, group, company or task type. They can drastically reduce payment times and collection procedures through automated reminders or simply by discussing the matter with the client, because they have real-time information.
- Easier exchanges with your accountant: by creating access for your accountant, you enable them to retrieve every invoice very easily without having to contact you.
All that remains is to try it.
Faster administrative procedures, time savings, shorter payment periods and early compliance—which will certainly reassure your major clients. In short, it delivers smoother operations and greater productivity, demonstrating sound management while reducing day-to-day difficulties.
We therefore invite you to contact Tempolia for a no-obligation product demonstration.