Increasing efficiency with decreasing costs – Inbound invoice processing

By the extension of the scope of the real-time invoice reporting, all invoices reported to the companies’ tax number become available in real-time, allowing the taxpayers an automated and real-time download of purchase invoice data directly from the Tax Authority’s portal. At the same time the taxpayers are facing increasing administrative burden by the abolition of the threshold of reporting the domestic purchase invoices in the Domestic Purchase List (“DPL”). The fact that the Tax Authority automatically aggregates and compares the invoice information reported by the vendors to the Tax Authority’s system with the DPL upon receiving the companies’ VAT return also calls for automation in the processes. 

These changes are generating an increasing demand to enhance efficiency of the purchase invoice processing method by minimizing the manual errors and necessary manual intervention in the data capture process. Deloitte Hungary has developed an in-house digital solution called VATOnline which has various additional functionalities in the field of inbound invoice processing, as follows. 

VATOnline is capable of automatically downloading the purchase invoices issued to the companies’ tax number from the Tax Authority’s Online Invoice system. In order to ensure a comprehensive document processing method, VATOnline offers OCR solution to capture the invoice data also from those invoices which are not reported to the authorities.   

With a flexible and extended search functionality, both the head and line-level invoice data can be downloaded and exported into an Excel format. The  invoice downloading can be further sophisticated by scheduling the inquiry of the purchase invoices within a predefined timeframe specified by the company. During the download of the invoices, several filtering options are available which enable the users to easily identify the partner invoices necessary to their work. 

In case the invoice is issued in an electronic XML format through the Tax Authority’s system, the certified electronic invoice is archived by the VATOnline solution and PDF conversion to a standard invoice layout is also available. 

Additional business validations are also incorporated in the above downloading process, such as automatic check of formal invoice requirements including PO number check, automated partner control or monitoring of KATA partners.

The preparation of a special file for accounting purposes (“pre-accounting”) is also available by applying a predefined rulest for the accounting information.

The above indicated steps are included in a predefined workflow where at the end of the process the users are able to decide on the acceptance of the invoice by applying a multi-level approval process.

In addition to that the software is capable of automatically preparing / verifying and cross-checking the DPL based on the input data of the company and the invoice data available at the Tax Authority’s portal. Further to the standard analytical comparison, VATOnline applies sophisticated business validations like filtering of non-deductible transactions or further anomalies that could impact VAT deduction in any matter.  

The mentioned VATOnline functions are available in a so-called Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model in the frame of which the company is not required to complete any IT changes in its systems or the infrastructure itself as these are provided by the Deloitte cloud. The setup of the environment can be configured within a few days and our service includes the software updates as well. However, upon request, VATOnline can be installed in the user’s environment as well. Integration with the ERP system is also possible. 

Deloitte Hungary has a dedicated tax technology team which can help in the introduction of the functionalities of the VATOnline or in other tax technology developments, should you need further information please reach us out.