E-Invoicing / Glossary
E-invoicing glossary
The recurring jargon across e-invoicing mandates, in plain terms — from clearance models and Peppol to the acronyms behind each country's system.
- Access Point / Service ProviderASP
- An accredited provider that transmits e-invoices on your behalf and, in some regimes, reports to the authority. Required in models like the UAE's PINT AE.
- Approved Platform (plateforme agréée)
- Formerly commonly referred to as PDP. A state-registered provider in France's model that transmits invoices and reports data on a business's behalf.
- CFDI
- Comprobante Fiscal Digital por Internet — Mexico's e-invoice, generated through an authorised PAC and cleared by the SAT before delivery (current version 4.0).
- Clearance modelCTC
- A Continuous Transaction Controls model where the tax authority validates (clears) an invoice before or at the moment it is issued. India, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Brazil use variants of this.
- Decentralised CTC & ExchangeDCTCE
- A model where accredited providers exchange invoices and report data to the authority in parallel, without a single central clearance point. The basis of Peppol five-corner setups.
- Digital Reporting RequirementsDRR
- Near-real-time reporting of transaction data to the tax authority, alongside or instead of periodic VAT returns. A core element of ViDA.
- EN 16931
- The European semantic standard defining the core data model of an electronic invoice. The reference standard for ViDA and most EU national mandates.
- Fawtara
- Oman's e-invoicing system, built on the Peppol framework, with a phased rollout from 2026.
- Five-corner model
- A Peppol arrangement where sender, sender's provider, receiver's provider, receiver, and the tax authority each play a role — the authority being the fifth corner.
- Hermes
- A platform provided by the Belgian government allowing businesses to send structured e-invoices to Belgian customers who are not yet connected to the Peppol network.
- IRP / IRN
- India's Invoice Registration Portal and the Invoice Reference Number it issues — an invoice is only valid under GST e-invoicing once it carries a registered IRN.
- KSeF
- Poland's National e-Invoice System — a central platform that receives structured FA(3) invoices and assigns each a KSeF number.
- Master data
- The reference data behind every invoice — customer and vendor tax IDs, product/service tax codes, and addresses. Its quality is the single biggest determinant of e-invoicing readiness.
- MyInvois
- Malaysia's e-invoicing platform operated by LHDN, which validates invoices in real time.
- NF-e / NFS-e
- Brazil's electronic invoices for goods (NF-e) and services (NFS-e) — XML documents pre-cleared by the tax authority.
- PAC
- Proveedor Autorizado de Certificación — an authorised provider in Mexico that certifies and stamps CFDIs on behalf of the SAT.
- Peppol
- An international framework and network for exchanging electronic documents through accredited Access Points. Increasingly adopted for e-invoicing beyond its European origin.
- PINT AE
- The UAE's Peppol-based e-invoicing specification, exchanged through Accredited Service Providers.
- Post-audit
- The traditional model where invoices are exchanged freely and the tax authority audits them later. Being phased out as mandates arrive.
- ViDA
- VAT in the Digital Age — the EU package moving intra-EU B2B transactions to structured e-invoicing and digital reporting, with the main obligation from July 2030.
- ZATCA / FATOORA
- Saudi Arabia's Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority and its e-invoicing programme (FATOORA), now in the Phase 2 integration/clearance stage rolled out by waves.