Supplier Bills: Receiving E-Invoices Is Already the Job
Accounts payable for a shop is not a card product. It is incoming e-invoices, goods received, and a payment that matches. Here is the receive duty, the four-day clock, and the IBAN rule.
Supplier Bills: Receiving E-Invoices Is Already the Job
Finance platforms list "bill pay and accounts payable" next to corporate cards. For a European shop the legal work starts earlier: can you receive the invoice at all, and can you prove you did something with it.
Receive Is Not Optional
| Market | Incoming invoice today | What "processed" means |
|---|---|---|
| Germany | Receive duty live since 1 January 2025. EN 16931 (XRechnung or ZUGFeRD EN 16931 / Extended). A mailbox is enough for the BMF. It is not enough for GoBD if you flatten the XML. | Accept the structured file, archive it unaltered, post it, pay the vendor master IBAN |
| Spain | Crea y Crece: when you are in scope, you report acceptance, rejection with grounds, or payment date within 4 calendar days. TicketBAI / Verifactu still apply to what you yourself issue. | Triage in four days. Silence is a status problem, not a drawer |
| Poland | The supplier's KSeF invoice is deemed received when it hits your inbox (art. 106na). You do not get to claim "the PDF never arrived." | Download, match, pay. From 1 January 2027 the KSeF number goes in the transfer title |
A US-style "forward bills to bills@ and we OCR the PDF" is the opposite of this. Germany's other-format PDF is a Vorsteuer risk after the issuance dates. Spain's PDF is not the e-invoice under RD 238/2026.
Match to What Arrived, Then Pay
Three records have to agree:
- The supplier invoice (structured).
- The goods or service (delivery note, GRN, kitchen receipt, "yes we took the beer").
- The payment (SEPA, split payment in Poland, card only if that was actually the deal).
Mismatches are the work:
- Invoice for 40 cases, GRN for 38. Partial. Do not auto-pay the XML total.
- Credit note after a return. Combination match, same as on the AR side.
- Duplicate e-invoice numbers. KSeF and Verifactu make silent duplicates harder. Email ZUGFeRD still duplicates.
- IBAN on the invoice that is not the IBAN on the vendor record. Pay the record. Treat the invoice field as a proposal. That is the fraud control from the German email-channel note.
Approvals Are Short
A restaurant does not need a six-step procurement suite. It needs:
- New vendor: second person, second channel, before the first payment
- Amount over a threshold: owner, not the chef who placed the call
- Recurring, unchanged IBAN, matching GRN: can post
Card-policy controls on employee spend are a different product. Staff buying parsley on a personal card is an expense. A wholesaler sending an XRechnung is AP. Do not run both through the same swipe story.
Who Reports What in Spain
As recipient you accept or reject with grounds inside four days once that obligation applies to you. Habitual rejection to delay payment is visible. As payer you later report the effective payment date from the bank, not from a tick in mail.
Germany has no state payment feed. Your AP aging is the report. Poland has the KSeF number as the future match key on the way out.
Plandesk puts supplier e-invoices on the same vendor as stock receipts. Receive, match, pay from master data. The accountant export includes the incoming file, not a retyped line.
This material is information of a general nature and does not constitute legal or tax advice. For a specific situation, verify the current rules or consult a qualified adviser.