Why e-invoicing changes how you invoice

In the UAE, the invoice between businesses, and with government, is changing. A PDF sent by e-mail won't be the invoice any more. It becomes data. Your Accredited Service Provider sends it to your customer's provider, and both report it to the Federal Tax Authority.

It arrives in phases, by the size of the business, and government entities have their own dates. They're on screen, with their source. Sales to consumers are left out, for now.

For most businesses, that raises the same worries. A provider to appoint, and to connect to the books. Invoices the network refuses because a detail is missing. Mistakes you can't simply edit once an invoice is filed. Suppliers' bills arriving as data, and sometimes twice. Years of records to keep. And for a corporate service provider, all of that, for every client.

Traditionally, e-invoicing means an integration project: a connector to build, another system to log into, and someone to keep the two in step. SnapLedger is the new way. E-invoicing is part of the books you already keep: you invoice as you always have, and SnapLedger checks, files and keeps every e-invoice. Powered by Tax Star, a UAE Accredited Service Provider.

Getting there takes one set-up. The business appoints Tax Star on the FTA's EmaraTax portal, invites SnapLedger's address to its company in Tax Star, and leaves invoice approval off. After that, everything happens in SnapLedger.

This course follows Dunewood Workshop, which makes furniture and fit-out joinery in Al Quoz, Dubai. It sells to offices across the UAE, to homeowners, and now and then to a hotel abroad, and it buys its boards and hardware from suppliers who e-invoice too.

Yusuf owns Dunewood, and connects it once. Lina keeps the books: she invoices, corrects, receives the suppliers' bills and keeps the records. And Amira runs Harbour Gate, a corporate service provider that keeps the books of Dunewood's customer, Qamar Bay Logistics.

Seven short lessons: connect once, invoices checked and filed, the sales that aren't the usual kind, and credit notes. Then the suppliers' bills, the records and the outages, and e-invoicing for every client. Let's begin.