The e-invoice, which saves labor and paper and offers tax control solutions, is used by countries in the Middle East and North Africa, and the number of countries and companies using e-invoice in this region is increasing day by day.

Egypt, which started the first phase of the e-invoicing application under the umbrella of selected large companies on November 15, 2020, will move to the second phase at the end of June 2021.

The transition to mandatory electronic invoicing is part of a long-term Egypt strategy called Egypt Vision 2030, which is specifically aimed at digitally transforming public services.

Decree 188 of the Egyptian Ministry of Finance created a general framework for mandatory e-invoice. According to Decree 386 of the Egyptian Tax Administration, 134 companies operating in Egypt are required to issue e-invoice.

The data included in the invoice content are standard (eg vendor, buyer information).

However, information about delivered products must comply with the global product standardization (GPC) defined by the Global Standards 1 Organization (GS1). Taxpayers must match the internal commodity codes used in SAP for GPC.

The Egyptian Tax Authority has published a useful summary of the steps required to integrate ERP users into the e-invoicing system. Decree No. 188 of 2020 adds that e-invoices must contain the taxpayer’s e-signature and the unified code for the goods or services that are the subject of the e-invoice certified by the Egyptian Tax Authority.

The integration between SAP and the Egyptian e-invoicing system is based on various existing APIs (application programming interface). Both APIs and the entire e-billing system were developed by the global IT giant Microsoft.

The required format for Egyptian invoices is JSON or XML. The invoices issued must also be digitally signed.

We offer our customers the Melasoft SAP e-invoice solution via the SAP system, with which they can manage their e-invoice processes with the SAP system, which is fully integrated with the Egyptian Tax Authority (ETA).