For companies in the petrol, diesel and motor fuel sector, as well as sub-contractors performing services to the public sector as part of a framework service agreement, the deadline for the compulsory introduction of electronic invoices is 1 July this year.

All other Italian business invoices and consumer bills must be electronic by 1 January 2019. This tough Italian e-invoicing mandate in many ways resembles the status quo in many Latin American and other emerging economies: the invoice must be submitted to an online government platform before it is considered as issued for tax purposes.

TrustWeaver has automated e-invoice compliance for thousands of companies and their service providers in Italy since 2005. As part of its contractual undertakings to its customers, the TrustWeaver service will be adjusted to meet these new requirements in a timely manner.

Dag Hedfors, Director of Product Management at TrustWeaver, said: "We have worked with these types of real-time tax control systems for almost a decade in counties outside the EU. Italy is the first European Union Member State to go as far as mandating full-fledged clearance for business and consumer invoices. We're expecting that countries like Portugal, Spain, France and Hungary may well move toward real-time controls in the coming years too. Based on our unique global legislative monitoring approach and long experience in working with tax administrations and businesses to automate electronic document compliance in some 60 countries, we can guarantee that the hundreds of thousands of businesses that rely on our service always stay on the right side of the law. If you're not sure you already benefit from these unique assurances, ask your solution or service provider if they have the TrustWeaver service enabled for your invoices."