The dematerialization of invoices is accelerating, but a little-known obligation accompanies this transformation: the Reliable Audit Trail. Deciphering a regulation that can become an asset for your organization.
The Reliable audit trail, this obligation that changes the game
Since 2014, French companies have had the choice between three processes to give a fiscal value to their invoices: fiscal EDI, qualified electronic signature, or the Reliable Audit Trail. The latter becomes mandatory in all other cases.
Concretely, your PDF invoices sent by email or filed on a supplier portal only have legal value if you implement a PAF. Because an invoice is not defined by its format, but by its content.
What exactly is the Trusted Audit Trail?
The tax administration defines it as the set of devices that make it possible to demonstrate the economic reality of the invoiced transaction. Its objective? Irrefutably reconstruct the complete chronology of the billing process.
This process covers five fundamental steps that your company must formalize: contracting (quotation, contract), ordering, logistics (delivery/receiving), invoicing and cash flow.
The risks of a failing Reliable audit trail
Without complete traceability between orders, deliveries, invoices and payments, the tax authorities may refuse to consider your invoices as valid supporting documents.
The consequences are serious: the VAT charged by your supplier is still due, while your tax deduction may be called into question. Even more worrisome, the absence of a documented process can raise the suspicion of fraud.
Beyond compliance, business benefits
The PAF is not limited to a fiscal constraint. It offers concrete optimization opportunities.
On the fiscal side, it reinforces your VAT control measures and secures your treatments. Operationally, it puts an end to wild purchases, optimizes order-bill reconciliation and structures your payment validation process.
You might as well transform this regulatory obligation into a lever for improving your internal processes.
The three pillars of an effective Reliable audit trail
The authenticity of the invoice
Your organization must be able to prove that the person who issued the invoice is the person who provided the service or delivered the goods. This involves systematically reconciling the order, delivery note and invoice data.
Reconciliation may be manual, but you should maintain evidence that this check has been completed. Hence the value of automation solutions that manage the Purchase to Pay process from end to end.
Rigorous management of your suppliers at the outset also reinforces this control. Validating supplier data (SIRET, VAT number, email) even before registering in your ERP is a first security barrier.
The integrity of the content
The invoice recorded in accounting must correspond exactly to the one issued by the supplier. Time-stamped archiving procedures guarantee this integrity. The digital safe represents a reliable solution to meet this requirement.
Permanent readability
Your invoices must remain legible from when they are issued until the end of their retention period, both for your employees and for tax auditors. One EDM solution allows you to easily store and consult your scanned invoices and PDFs.
They use Efalia to manage their invoices
Will the Reliable audit trailsurvive the 2024 reform?
The Reliable Audit Trail will remain mandatory even after the generalization of the electronic invoicing. She continues to prove the validity of invoices and the reality of commercial transactions.
The reform does not abolish the PAF, it strengthens it. The new exchange system will facilitate the proof of the authenticity of invoices through the mandatory management of statuses (received, validated, paid).
Transforming constraint into opportunity
Instead of experiencing these obligations as constraints, think of them as opportunities to strengthen your compliance. A simple overhaul of your processes generates significant gains in productivity and reduces your operational risks.
This approach is part of a virtuous circle that consolidates the trust of all your partners: suppliers, customers, shareholders. It represents a major responsibility issue for business leaders.
Today's mature technology makes it possible to quickly comply with this regulation while gaining visibility across your entire purchase-order-delivery-invoicing chain.
