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How To Guide Fiscal Overview

Fiscal Overview

Fiscalisation is a legal requirement imposed by the Tax Authorities (TA) of an increasing number of countries, but particularly prevalent within Europe. The common reason for fiscal legislation between countries is to record sales in such a way that an inalterable record of each transaction and the VAT due is available to the TA.

Enactor has fiscal solutions available for the majority of European Fiscal countries and continues to work on additional country solutions both inside and outside Europe. Enactor found a common complaint from retailers was POS providers and Fiscal Software Solutions providers blaming each other when things went wrong. Enactor’s approach to fiscal responsibility is to avoid reliance on third parties wherever possible. This allows Enactor to provide solutions that do not have hidden third-party software costs and ensure customers have a single point of contact.

Whilst Enactor have avoided relying on software partners to provide pre-packed solutions, we recognise the importance of in-country experts. We have therefore built a network of partners that both help us initially understand legislation and the technical requirements for each country but are also kept on retainer to inform us of any legislation changes and guide us through their implementation. This allows us to keep our solutions up to date and compliant, in what is often a fast-changing area in terms of legislation.

While the reasons for Fiscal legislation are common between countries, unfortunately the approach taken differs from one to the next. However, there are several common patterns outlined below:

Device Based​

When each transaction is finalised, it is sent to a physical device which records the transaction in an inalterable way. In some countries, the device also functions as a printer; in others it is a USB or network connected device.

Devices contain a fiscal module which will both sign and record each transaction in a write once read many, fiscal memory. The signature produced by the device is usually printed on the receipt so that the customer, or a Tax Inspector, can see the transaction has been recorded properly. Devices typically have some mechanism to provide the data held to the TA, commonly one of:

  • Extract in a defined format, triggered by the POS

  • Internal GPRS connections

  • Device requires an ethernet internet connection

  • Memory Card that can be provided to the TA on request

These Fiscal Devices are certified by the TA and this usually, although not always, means that the POS solution does not need certification.

Service Based​

Transactions are sent to an online service provided by the TA which will record the transaction detail and provide a signature back as part of the response. This signature is usually required to be printed on the receipt, in some countries in the form of a QR code. Some tax authorities offer an incentive where retail customers can scan the QR code to be entered in a regular lottery, thus encouraging reporting of retailers who are not compliant.

Each country has its own provisions for how to deal with a loss of connection to the service, but it is usual to permit offline sales which must either be manually recorded or electronically submitted to the TA within a defined timeframe.

Signature Based​

In this type of scheme, it becomes the responsibility of the POS to record the transactions in an inalterable way and provide a record of the transactions to the TA. The usual approach is to sign and record each transaction, including the signature of the previous transaction as part of the signed data. This has the effect of producing a chain of signed transactions where a transaction modified later would be detectable, as either the altered transaction or all subsequent transactions would have incorrect signatures.

The second requirement of this type of solution is for the POS solution to be able to provide the transaction data, including signatures, to the TA. This data is usually provided in an XML file, often the common SAF-T format.

It’s also common for the signature, or part of it, to be printed on the customer receipt.

Clearly, this type of solution requires the TA to have a certain level of trust in the POS provider that they will properly protect the private key used to sign the transactions and that they will not provide the retailer with a mechanism to alter transactions. It is therefore common for these types of solutions to require either a declaration of conformity or formal certification process.

Other Requirements​

As well as the above, countries often have other fiscal requirements that must be adhered to, some of which are common between countries, for example:

  • Sales and Returns are not permitted in the same transaction

  • Transaction value must be positive

  • Ability to produce X and Z reports in a prescribed manner

  • Items may not be discounted to zero or negative values

  • Handling of deposit and balance transactions

  • Requirement to produce invoices for transactions that meet certain

    criteria, over a set value, B2B etc.

  • Handling of tax for bottle returns