As expected, Brazil continues to add and update their Nota Fiscal
legislation. In this article I want to discuss developments around Transportation Invoices, as these will be mandated starting
in September 2012.
The Transporation
Invoice, also known as the Conhecimento de Transporte (CT-e for short) was
added to the legislation as a mandatory electronic document based on the 169th
meeting of the Conselho Nacional de Política Fazendária – CONFAZ held on
December 11, 2011. In the following section I summarize some of the common questions companies are asking.
What is the CT-e?
Brazil Transportation Document – is issued and stored electronically in
order to document the provision of transport services, whose legal validity is
guaranteed by the issuer’s digital signature and authorization of use provided
by the tax administration. Examples of use would be a Waybill (model 10) or an
Invoice for Transportation Service (model 7 when transporting cargo).
What are the dates for compliance?
September 1, 2012 is
the initial deadline with others following in December of 2012. There are waves of
compliance defined by the government which are listed in the link to the
general announcement.
www.fazenda.gov.br/confaz/confaz/ajustes. This link is in Portuguese, I am sorry if you can't read it! Your web browser should be able to give
you a basic translation of the material. This announcement also lists further
timelines as well as a list of transportation organizations that are
specifically called out in Annex One for compliance.
Are there benefits to our organization that we should
consider along with the mandate?
There are definitely benefits to an SAP user, beyond just
becoming compliant. For example, we are
seeing companies tackle the CT-e early and capitalize on the business processes
which are accelerated due to the electronic requirement. For example:
- Lower Freight Costs: Track your spending on transportation invoices for discrepancies and eliminate duplicate invoices and payments. You can automatically match the electronic invoice against Transportation Management Systems or blanket PO.
- Less Labor, Faster Processing: Automatic reconciliation of inbound NF-e for acknowledged and pre-approved payment processing.
What is the key take away? Ensure your back-end solutions have the ability to validate the CT-e and work with your freight forwarding and 3PL partners to understand the timeframes that they will transition to the CT-e.
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Kevin Benedict, EDI and e-Invoicing Veteran, Consultant, Speaker and Writer
Follow me on Twitter @b2b_benedict
Join the SAP EDI and e-Invoicing group on Linkedin
Full Disclosure: I am an independent consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
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