Chile Mandates Electronic Invoicing

Important note: Up until 2014, the requirement to utilize electronic invoicing for domestic invoices in Chile was voluntary. This meant that you could transition to electronic invoicing, but if you did, you had to do it in a certain way that was managed by the government.  However, you were not forced to do e-invoicing by the government.

In 2014, this is changing for many companies. In September of 2013, the Chile SII (tax authority) announced that they will be rolling out mandatory electronic invoicing for large enterprises with an expectation of having all companies transitioned by the end of 2017.  Current expectation is that large enterprises, those over 2.4 Billion CLP will have to be live around October 2014 – the laws will be refined over the next few weeks.

Key features of the Chilean e-invoicing model include:

• Folios/Guia de Despacho: The Chilean electronic invoicing model combines elements of the batch-oriented folio scheme used in the old Mexican CFD model along with the real-time communication as found in Brazil and Argentina.  The process begins in two steps - first a delivery document (the “Gia Despacho” or “bill of lading”) is generated and registered with the government as the initial transport event, and then other fiscal documents (like invoice or credit/debit notes) are generated and registered with reference to that document as follow-on activities occurring later in the process.
• Outbound: Currently, there are 10 types of electronic fiscal documents, referred to collectively as “Documentos Tributarios Electrónicos” or DTE.  Each DTE type draws from its own range of government issued document numbers, which are consumed by the company in sequence as each DTE is produced. 
• Monthly Reports: At the end of each month, three compliance reports must be uploaded to the government web site for a business, either manually or through automated web service.  These reports summarize the DTE transactions produced during the month and also include any Paper-DTE’s produced in contingency as well. 
• Inbound: Customers registered for outbound DTE must be able to receive it inbound also.  This involves providing a XML response back to the SII via HTTP post, which is then forwarded onto the supplier by the SII via email.  The buyer has 8 days to provide this response – if they do not affirmatively reject or notify the supplier of an issue within that time, then the invoice is presumptively assumed to have been accepted.  If the XML file is invalid, then the entire transaction is invalid, even if the paper DTE was printed correctly.  Customers are strongly encouraged to perform inbound fiscal compliance validation on all inbound DTE.
• Contingency: Paper based DTE documents are allowed as a contingency measure in case of technical difficulty.  Contingency DTE’s have a separate range of folio numbers and need not be registered with the government after-the-fact once operations have resumed, though they are included in the relevant reporting extracts at month-end.
• Cancellations: Cancellations are eschewed in favor of separate credit/rebill transactions
• Web Services: Registration functions are provided via web services maintained by the government.   

Document Types

There are 10 document types (plus 3 monthly reporting extracts) in use in Chile today. Formats include separate XML structures for goods versus services invoices, for export and consignment invoices, and for “purchase invoices” or doumentation made by a buyer on behalf of an individual seller who is not able to provide an invoice either electronically or on paper.  Finally, there are also DTE versions for documents “without VAT effect” which model fiscal scenarios that are exempt from VAT (as when selling to the government or universities or with certain types of goods) – these are referred to as “exenta” DTE types.

Libros Reports

• Libro de Boletas, Libro de Guias, Libro de Venta, Libor de Compra