To improve efficiency and reduce errors in financial transactions Finland has passed several laws to implement a electronic invoicing standard.
Read more about the current situation in Finland and how you can easily start sending or receving your e-invoices.
Since April 1 2019, Finnish central government bodies are mandated to only accept e-invoices that comply with the European standard on e-Invoicing according to the EU directive. This directive is intended to standardize electronic invoicing for all EU member states. Non-central entities in Finland, such as local governments, were given one extra year to meet the requirements and start receiving and processsing compliant e-Invoices.
In addition, the e-invoicing law applies to contracts that exceed national thresholds but fall below those of the EU and the law allows contracting entities to request and receive EN compliant e-invoices from each other.
As of April 6 2021 businesses and service providers must be able to process, exchange and validate e-invoicing according to the structured EN standard. If this is not feasible for the sender of an e-invoice both parties can agree to a different contractual solution.
There are several ways to send an e-invoice to Finnish government institutions or to a private company. Choose your option below.
The preferred option for sending e-invoices to the Finnish government is Peppol:
If you want to send invoices to a company in Finland, you can use Peppol. It works for any type of business, from freelancers to large multinationals. It only takes a few minutes to register on a certified Peppol Access point and send your first e-invoice.
If you want to send invoices via Peppol you only have to register on an official Peppol Access Point.
Follow the steps below to register on the Billit Access Point and send your first invoice.
Peppol is a secure and closed network with many advantages:
The identity of everyone affiliated with the network is verified, so you can be sure that the invoices you receive are genuine, and you avoid invoice fraud.
The invoices you send through the network are completely digital, so you can process them automatically in your invoicing software.
E-invoices in the UBL standard are automatically read correctly. This prevents human error during processing.
Linking to your bank account means that outgoing and incoming invoices are automatically matched and you get a better overview of your company's financial situation.
Peppol is fast: your recipient will receive your invoice within 10 minutes of sending it. Combined with automatic processing, this will save a lot of time.
Peppol is an open network for securely sending and receiving business documents such as invoices. It is designed to simplify the purchase-to-pay process between governments and suppliers. Peppol was developed by the European commission but is on its way to become a global standard.
There are many kinds of identifiers for sending invoices via Peppol. Find out the difference between each option below.
| Type | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| VAT (identification) number or VAT-id number | A unique identification number for entrepreneurs liable to VAT. It should be included on each invoice to customers. | FI01120389 |
| Business ID (OVT) | The number to identify Finnish companies | 01120389 |
