Copy for AI

European e-invoicing

The same invoice, in the structured formats your clients’ accounts payable systems read across Europe.

If your business is established in the European Union, every invoice issued in Cord is also available as an e-invoice under the European standard EN 16931. It is not a different document: it has the same number, the same date, and the same amounts as the PDF, written so your client’s system can process it without keying it in.

Formats

• Factur-X (PDF): the invoice PDF with the XML inside (EN 16931 profile). It opens like any PDF, and systems that accept Factur-X or ZUGFeRD also read it. It is the usual format in France.
• XRechnung (UBL) and XRechnung (CII): the format required by the German public sector and accepted by many companies in Germany. UBL is the most common; CII is there in case your client asks for it.
• Peppol BIS 3.0 (UBL): the format of the Peppol network, used across much of Europe.
• Facturae 3.2.2 (XML): the Spanish format, only for businesses established in Spain and invoices in euros. It is the only one that declares the IRPF withholding.

Your client’s document language doesn’t change any XML: the same document produces the same file in any language. In Factur-X, the visible PDF does follow the invoice’s language (in France, with French first); the XML inside doesn’t change. See Invoice language.

Set up your data once

When you create an invoice you can also enter the buyer reference and the purchase order in the editor summary. If you leave the reference empty, the client’s is used. Peppol requires at least one of the two.

Download

Open the issued invoice. In the right column, the E-invoice section lists every format that invoice can already produce, ready to download. For the others, it says which data is missing and links to the place where you fix it.

Your client can also download the available formats from the invoice’s public link, next to the PDF.

Attach to the email

In Settings › Tax profile › Attach to invoice emails you choose what goes with the email:

• Automatic: Factur-X in France, PDF plus XRechnung XML in Germany, and the PDF only elsewhere.
• PDF only.
• Factur-X PDF: replaces the regular PDF (it looks the same and carries the XML inside).
• PDF + XRechnung XML.
• PDF + Facturae XML (Spain only): signed if you turned signing on, unsigned otherwise. In Spain the automatic value is the PDF only: your client does not expect an XML they did not ask for.

If an invoice is missing data for the chosen format, the email goes out with the regular PDF and the invoice tells you what is missing. Sending never stops because of this.

Taxes and exemptions

Each line is classified with the European VAT category:

• with a rate above zero, standard or reduced rate;
• at 0%, the reason you chose on the exempt profile in Settings › Taxes (reverse charge, intra-community supply, export, not subject to VAT, zero rated, or an exemption of the VAT Directive). In Spain, the Verifactu reason is used;
• at 0% without a reason, Cord infers it: the issuer’s small-business scheme, a client in another EU country with a VAT number (reverse charge), a client outside the EU (export), or a domestic exemption.

Canary Islands, Ceuta, and Melilla. If your business is in the Canary Islands, each line is declared with IGIC (category L of the European standard); in Ceuta or Melilla, with IPSI (category M), always with its rate, 0% included. Those territories are outside the EU VAT area, so your NIF travels as a tax registration and not as a VAT number, and a line cannot carry an exemption reason: remove it from the exempt profile and keep the rate. IGIC at 0% can be downloaded as XRechnung (UBL), Peppol, and Facturae, but not as Factur-X or XRechnung (CII): the official validator of that syntax requires a rate above zero.

A document discount or a coupon appears as it does on the PDF: each line with its amount before the discount and the discount subtracted in the totals, split by VAT category and rate, so the total matches the invoice to the cent. In the Facturae, each line carries its share of the discount.

Facturae (Spain)

If your business is in Spain, every invoice in euros issued with Verifactu is also downloadable as Facturae 3.2.2, from the invoice detail and from its public link; a pro forma has no electronic version. It comes from the same issued invoice, with the same amounts:

• IRPF as a withholding (not as a discount: the invoice base and total do not change);
• VAT, IGIC, or IPSI with its rate, and exempt or non-taxable supplies with their reason;
• reverse charge with its legal wording;
• a credit note as a corrective invoice by differences, with the invoice it corrects.

E-invoicing between businesses in Spain

Spanish law requires businesses and professionals to issue and receive e-invoices when the client is another business or professional established in Spain (Law 18/2022 and Royal Decree 238/2026). Order HAC/1028/2026 started the clock on 6 October 2026:

• 6 October 2027: businesses invoicing more than 8 million euros a year.
• 6 October 2028: all other businesses and professionals.
• 6 October 2029: self-employed people invoicing up to 8 million euros start reporting payment of the invoices they receive.

Cord will send each invoice to a client established in Spain through the AEAT public e-invoicing solution, which is free, and will tell it when you were paid. Only full payment is reported: a partial payment is not. If the invoice was already paid when you issued it, the invoice itself says so and your client does not have to report the payment.

Get ready now:

These will not go through the public solution:

• invoices to clients outside Spain, which are outside the obligation;
• invoices with IRPF withholding, until the AEAT publishes how its format declares them. Until then, download them as Facturae, one of the syntaxes the law accepts;
• invoices from businesses in the Basque Country and Navarre, which depend on agreements with their regional tax authorities that have not been published yet;
• credit notes for a simplified invoice.

E-invoicing in France

Since 1 September 2026 every business established in France must be able to receive e-invoices through an approved platform (PA), and large and mid-sized companies must also issue them and report their other transactions (e-reporting). Small and micro businesses issue and report from 1 September 2027.

Cord issues and reports for you, from the invoices you already issue:

• an invoice to another business established in France (with a SIREN) travels as Factur-X through the platform, and Cord shows on the invoice each status the platform reports: submitted, received by your client’s platform, approved, rejected…;
• a sale to a consumer is reported in the daily summary, and an invoice to a business in another country, one by one;
• if your VAT is due on payment (services without the option to pay VAT on debits), Cord reports each payment you record.

French invoices already carry the four new mentions: the client’s SIREN, the transaction category (goods, services or both), the option to pay VAT on debits if you took it, and the delivery address when it is not the client’s.

Statuses of a transmitted invoice

Each status the platform reports is kept on the invoice detail, with its date and reason, and in its history:

Code	Status	What to do
200	Submitted to the platform	Nothing: the invoice went out.
201	Issued by the platform	Nothing.
202	Received by the client’s platform	Nothing.
203	Made available to the client	Nothing.
204	Acknowledged by the client	Nothing.
205	Approved by the client	Nothing.
206	Partially approved by the client	Talk to your client about the part that wasn’t approved.
207	Disputed by the client	Resolve the disagreement with your client.
208	Suspended: the client asks for supporting documents	Send them the documents they ask for.
209	Completed with supporting documents	Nothing.
210	Refused by the client	Cancel it with a credit note and issue a new invoice.
211	Payment sent	Nothing: your client reported that they paid.
212	Payment received	Nothing: the payment was reported.
213	Rejected by a platform	Cancel it with a credit note and issue a new invoice.
501	File not accepted by the platform	Check the reason, cancel it, and issue a new invoice.

If your client or a platform rejects an invoice (210, 213, or 501), the invoice says so with the reason. It is not corrected: cancel it with a credit note (it is an accounting cancellation and is not transmitted) and issue a new invoice with the right data.

What’s reported about your sales and payments

Sale	How Cord reports it	Its payments
To a business established in France, with a SIREN	Transmits the invoice (Factur-X) through the platform.	If VAT is due on payment, each payment as status 212 Payment received.
To a business in another country, with a tax ID	Reports it one by one in the e-reporting.	In the payments e-reporting.
To a consumer, French or not	The day’s total, per currency and per type (goods, services, or transactions outside the scope of French VAT).	The day’s collected amount.

• Which payments are reported: only those for services, when you didn’t opt to pay VAT on debits. On a mixed invoice only the services part is sent, split by VAT rate.
• Refunds: on a transmitted invoice, a refund is reported as a negative payment with its reason. In the payments e-reporting the platform doesn’t accept negative amounts: Cord leaves it flagged so you can regularize it in the platform’s console.
• Currency: the payments e-reporting goes in euros, with the invoice’s locked exchange rate.
• Deadlines: Cord sends every day as soon as it closes. The platform groups what was sent into the period that matches your VAT regime: by ten-day periods in the monthly standard regime, by month in the quarterly and simplified ones, and every two months under the franchise. Settings › Tax profile counts what’s overdue.

Leitweg-ID

The Leitweg-ID identifies a German public body and ends with two check digits. Cord checks them on any electronic address with scheme 0204 (yours or a client’s) and on the buyer reference of a client with that address: on the client, in the invoice editor, and in the API. If they do not match, it is not saved and Cord says why; copy it again, complete, from the purchase order or the public body.

A Leitweg-ID saved before this check is not changed on its own: the client page flags it as Leitweg-ID to correct, and their e-invoices are not generated until you fix it.

When it cannot be generated

Cord does not produce an e-invoice that differs from the real invoice. There is no electronic version for:

• drafts, voided invoices, pro formas, and test documents;
• in Factur-X, XRechnung, and Peppol, invoices with withholdings (for example Spanish IRPF): the European standard has no place to declare them, and subtracting them as a discount or prepayment would change the base or the amount due. In Spain, download it as Facturae;
• an IGIC or IPSI line with an exemption reason;
• a Leitweg-ID whose check digits do not match;
• older invoices whose totals are not the exact sum of their lines;
• a supply not subject to VAT mixed with lines of another category: issue them separately.

Common problems

• “XRechnung requires the buyer reference”: enter it on the client or on the invoice before issuing it.
• “Peppol requires your participant identifier”: add your electronic address in Settings › Tax profile with a scheme other than email.
• “XRechnung requires payment instructions”: add your IBAN under Manual bank transfer, in Settings › Payments › Payment methods.
• “The Leitweg-ID check digits do not match”: copy it again, complete, from the purchase order or the public body, and correct it on the client.
• “Facturae requires the client’s tax ID”: enter it on the client; the Facturae is not generated without it.
• “Each line must say whether it is goods or a service” (France): choose the product’s type or, for lines typed by hand, the option in Settings › Tax profile. An issued invoice keeps its lines: it applies to the next ones.

Related

• Invoicing by country
• Create, issue, and collect invoices
• Recurring invoices