Requirements for a company’s invoice in Estonia
You’ve incorporated your business in Estonia and reached potential clients. Now you need to send them an invoice. But what information should you include in this document? What are the requirements for invoices in Estonia?
This article explains how to create an invoice for a company. It’s basically a guideline on what data to put and how to structure it well. Here we’ve discussed why correct invoices help you to be welcomed by your accountant, as well as bank account manager and investors.
Estonia is the perfect jurisdiction to run an international business, therefore we advise using an international invoice format that fits any business partner. We also emphasize details of invoice filling that are essential for Estonian bookkeeping below.
Your Company Details (Header)
Let’s consider an invoice as a piece of paper divided into three parts. The upper one (header) is an introduction. A seller or provider usually takes the first step toward a deal on the market. So, you introduce your company:
company name
registration number
company legal address
Estonian VAT number (EE followed by nine digits)
contact person and phone (optionally)
In the next part, you provide details about the invoice itself. It’s used mostly to organize your document workflow. You put the following technical details in the invoice for that:
invoice number
date of issue
date due
For ease of the accounting, invoice numbers should be unique and sequential. But it shouldn’t be a random sequential code. Simple invoice numbers such as '1', '2', '3', etc. become confusing when you reach double or multiple figures. Instead, you’d better have a numbering system. A number might refer to the year, the name of the agreement; then a longer sequential number comes.
There are some deadlines concerning the issuance date, however, the best option is to issue an invoice prior to goods or services being delivered.
The due date is the latest date when you expect this invoice to be paid by your customer. You can specify the due date as an exact day or a number of days. The due date is also your selling tool. With the ‘date due’ you fix the price offer for your customer.
Middle Part of Invoice
In the middle part, you point to your customer or client and what you offer. That is, you write Bill to/ Ship to
the name of that person or company
address of that person or company
another identifying information, for example, ID (if a person)
registration number and VAT (if a company)
By default, a legal address is used in documents. But if you ship something to your client, put a physical address of the person or company.
Then, you describe goods or services provided by your company:
What is it (name of product or service) | Quantity | Unit price | Amount
Lower Part of Invoice
Just under the unit price and amount, you continue the table with a calculation of the total price as follows:
Subtotal
VAT
Amount due
The subtotal is a field for a price with no taxes included. What taxes must be included in the invoice? VAT if your company is liable for. Here you can get a short summary of VAT rules in Estonia and then check it once more on the official website.
If your Estonian company is not VAT-liable, then you NEVER add VAT to invoices, not even a 0% rate.
NB! To avoid fines, you can check whether a type of business activity that you performed is under VAT and whether your customer [company] has a valid VAT number.
If your Estonian company has a VAT number, you add VAT to invoices. Even if the VAT rate is 0%, you put a so-called ‘tax clause’ explaining why that is the case.
In the VAT invoice, you should specify it first in percentage and then in the amount of money. There are several VAT rates in Estonia. To avoid mistakes, you can check it on the Estonian Tax and Customs Board website or use invoicing service that applies VAT automatically.
The amount due is the total price including VAT. Normally, no other taxes are applicable to the total cost. Do not forget to specify the currency.
The last step of preparing an invoice is a destination for the money. Companies usually put their bank account details:
beneficiary bank
IBAN
other requisites including SWIFT (if a transfer is out of the EEA)
You can put several bank account details and give your customer a possibility to choose one. An alternative to bank account details can be in an e-payment link or a clause in that you’ve written bank details in the contract.
That’s it! Check all the data is correct and send the invoice to your customer via e-mail. In fact, there’s nothing complicated, but still, manual creation of invoices sometimes provokes mistakes. Thus, it’s better to automate this process and use invoicing service.
On Enty, you’ve got totally automatized invoicing. You can keep and manage invoices in one place. Moreover, you can synchronize invoicing with your banking and accounting we provide in full compliance with Estonian rules.
Try it out and forget about wasting your precious time on invoices.
