Procountor can be used to send electronic invoices for consumers in the Finvoice format as well as direct payments (e-invoices). E-invoice is an electronic invoice for consumers that is sent to and paid in the recipient’s online bank.
Implementation of electronic invoices for consumers
It is possible to send invoicer announcements related to electronic invoices for consumers from Procountor. It is also possible to handle receiver info notifications and send electronic invoices for consumers to a consumer’s online bank.
Functions related to electronic invoices for consumers can be enabled by contacting Procountor Customer service via the contact form.
E-invoice agreement with the bank
- In order to use electronic invoices for consumers, the user organization must have an active agreement on sending and receiving e-invoices with the bank.
- E-invoice addresses have to be saved to the E-Invoice and Scanning provider addresses (Management > Company info > E-Invoice and Scanning provider addresses). It is recommended to verify from the bank in question if the sending of electronic invoices for consumers is included in the agreement – in some cases, the sending has to be agreed on separately.
Sending invoicer announcements
Invoicer announcements are used to inform the bank about the usage of e-invoice service. This action enables the consumer to see the organization as an e-invoice provider in the consumer’s own online bank.
1. Invoicer announcement button in Management > Company info > E-Invoice and Scanning provider addresses informs the bank operators that the user organization is ready to send electronic invoices for consumers. An invoicer announcement has identification information that allocates the receivers (consumers) to the right invoicer (the user organization). Based on the announcement, a consumer is offered an e-invoice option in his/her online bank when he/she is paying the invoice.
2. Fill in the fields of New invoicer announcement.
Operator and Sending address fields are filled with information from the active row when clicking the Invoicer announcement button.
Services provided by the seller field has two options to choose between: Electronic invoices for consumers or Electronic invoices for consumers and direct payment.
Identification information field has options Bank reference code, Customer No. and their combination, Customer No. and bank reference code.
If both customer number and bank reference code are used as identification information, both of them are obligatory when the customer is creating an E-invoice agreement. The customer number must be between 1 and 35 characters and it should not include other special characters than hyphens or spaces. When a reference number is used, there has to be a sales invoice for the customer that is found in Procountor.
Reason for invoicing section must include the reason for invoicing in Finnish, Swedish and English due to the information requirements of the bank. For example, the reason can be Phone bills or Insurance bills.
Instructions to receiver section must include instructions to the receiver of the invoice. Adding instructions is obligatory in Finnish. Adding instructions in Swedish or English is voluntary. The instructions can be, for example, about how to find the customer number or reference number on the invoice.
Select accounts section is used to select the bank accounts that the announcement applies to. At least one bank account has to be chosen. Menu on the left side shows all available accounts (bank connections). Choose one account or more and use the arrow button to move them to the announcement. Correspondingly, accounts can be removed from the announcement by choosing the account to be removed and clicking the lower arrow button.
3. Send button transfers the new invoicer announcement to the bank.
4. The bank processes invoicer announcements daily. Within the same banking group, announcements are available to use on the next day from the sending day (schedules may differ with different banks).
5. When the invoicer announcement has been made, E-Invoice and Scanning provider addresses view shows the sending time in Invoicer notification column.
Processing receiver info notifications
The customer creates and sends a receiver info notification in his/her own online bank. On the receiver info notification, the consumer expresses his/her willingness to receive e-invoices from your organization. Depending on the bank, the identification information of the receiver info notification is either the reference number of the last invoice or the customer number. We recommend that the customer has already received his/her first invoice through another channel. This way the customer can fill in the correct reference number and customer number on the bank’s e-invoice agreement.
Received notifications can be seen from the Quick links on the front page. If Consumer e-invoice/direct payment notifications option is not visible, it can be set visible by clicking Edit button.
Arrived receiver info notifications are also accessed by choosing Registers > Business partners > Receiver info notifications.
Arrived receiver info notifications, that have not yet been allocated to a customer in business partner register, are seen in Handling of consumer e-invoice and direct payment receiver info section. It is also possible that a customer wants to cancel an existing e-invoice agreement – these notifications are then visible here as well.
- If the receiver info is brought from an other software to Procountor, click Import receiver info notifications button and download the CSV file to Procoutor. Read more here.
A receiver info notification includes the name that the original notification has arrived with (Name from address book). In addition to this, Procountor infers correct business partner from the business partner register by the reference number entered on the receiver info notification. Name of the business partner is then shown in column Name (register).
- (register) means that the information is fetched from Procountor's business partner register.
- (notification) means that the information is fetched from the receiver information notification.
When a customer notifies that he/she wants to receive e-invoices, the receiver info notification’s status is Add. Correspondingly, if the customer wants to stop receiving e-invoices for consumers (and has earlier received them), the receiver info notification arrives with status Delete.
Allocating to business partners
1. Choose the right business partner to Name (register) -field by activating the field and selecting the business partner from the drop down menu.
- Name (register) column shows the presumed customer by the reference number used in the notification. ID column shows the reference number that has been used in the notification.
- If the Name (register) column is empty, the receiver info notification has not been connected successfully to an existing business partner in the business partner register, for example due to a missing reference number.
- Several notifications can be allocated at the same time of they have the right business partner chosen.
2. Select the notifications that are to be allocated and click Allocate to business partners button
- When the status is Add, invoice channel will be changed to electronic invoice and customer’s e-invoice address is saved to the Business partner register.
- When the status of a notification is Delete and it is handled with Allocate to business partners button, the customer’s invoice channel is changed to mail.
- Add and Delete notifications cannot be allocated at the same time.
Handling receiver info notifications automatically sets electronic invoice as the invoice channel and the address in the notification as the e-invoice address in the customer register.
After changing the invoice channel and saving the e-invoice address, it is possible to send sales invoices as e-invoices to the customer.
Receiver info notifications allocated to business partners can be searched with Business partner report (Reports > Register reports > Business partner report) by setting the search criteria Allocated receiver info notification to the Register info section and then by running the report.
Deleting and cancelling a receiver info notification
If there is an unfounded notification in the view (for example, the sender is not a customer of the company and has sent the notification accidentally), the notification can be deleted with Delete row button.
Already allocated receiver info notifications can be examined in the lower section of the view (Allocated consumer e-invoice and direct payment receiver info). Select a time interval to the search criteria and click Search.
Incorrectly allocated receiver info notification can be removed by selecting a notification in the lower section of the view and by clicking Release selected allocation.
After the allocation is released, the receiver info notification is visible in the upper section of the view (Handling of consumer e-invoice and direct payment receiver info). Releasing an allocation changes the invoice channel in the customer register to post and when the payment method is direct invoice the payment method is changed to bank transfer.
Releasing an allocation creates a time stamp to columns Edited and Edited by. These columns can then be used to track the changes of notifications and the users that have made those changes.