Recently, Voxel Caribe and Adofintech organised a webinar to discuss the latest developments in electronic invoicing in the Dominican Republic. More specifically, we discussed the details required to become an electronic taxpayer of the DGII. To make the session more practical, we had the experience of Dominican Watchman, one of the first Dominican companies to communicate with the DGII electronically.
“In the not so distant future, electronic invoicing will cease to be voluntary and will become mandatory. This is what has happened in all the countries in the region that have started this process (…). There is an invaluable opportunity to take advantage of this process now before we have to do it quickly”, reflected Virginia Velázquez, Director of Adofintech.
Electronic invoicing in the Dominican Republic is here to stay. This is confirmed by the experience of Voxel Caribe, which has been offering this service in the country for more than 8 years. In the words of Gina Lovatón, VP of Voxel Caribe, “There are hundreds of companies that have been using electronic invoicing for years. And they do it because of the efficiency it generates. These companies receive so many invoices that having to check them by hand one by one requires processes, re-processing and errors. All paper invoices need to be checked by someone else. On the other hand, an electronic invoice is not only useful for the DGII to be informed, but also for companies to process them electronically and make automatic validations”.
In this process, the role of Voxel Caribe and its electronic invoicing platform baVel is to connect companies with other companies or with the public administration. “Thanks to baVel, the invoice issued by your system (SAP, Navision, Sage…) can be read by another system. baVel encrypts and translates the invoices so that they can be delivered to the recipient. We are an electronic authenticator. We are the means that helps you certify and deliver the different invoices,” explained Lovatón of Voxel Caribe.
Benefits of becoming an electronic taxpayer of the DGII
Following the completion of the e-invoicing pilot, any DGII taxpayer can now become an electronic taxpayer. This means communicating with the DGII electronically. With this step, the DGII seeks to have greater control over the country’s transactions and to avoid tax fraud. But for businesses, there are also several benefits:
- Reporting: the need to generate 606, 607 and 608 reports is eliminated.
- Savings: by not requiring the filing of physical invoices. Invoices are stored in electronic format in a digital archive.
- Errors / Rectifications: the status of electronic invoices does not change, since when an invoice is received the DGII has already accepted it.
- Back up: baVel will keep an additional copy to the one the company has for 10 years.
- Online communication with the DGII: having all documents in order and with the DGII’s approval dissipates the possibility of future penalties.
- Digitalisation opportunity: this project is also an opportunity to automate your company’s internal processes.
NCF vs. e-CF
Gilberto Calderón, Product Analyst at Voxel Caribe, intervened in the discussion to give details of the technical parts of the project. “The first change made by the DGII during the pilot was the creation of the new nomenclature: from B01 (NCF) to E31 (e-CF)”.
“To guarantee the security of the communication, digital certificates are used to add a digital signature to the document. (…) The digital signature guarantees that the document has not been modified and that the issuer is who it says it is”, Calderón explained.
The electronic invoice can be consulted through its printed representation. The printed representation of the electronic invoice incorporates a QR code that allows the status of the invoice to be consulted in real time.
The procedure to start the DGII electronic taxpayer certification is simple. The first step is to fill in a form with basic information about your company. Then, the DGII will give you access to a test environment to check if your company is ready. And finally the certification is issued and the taxpayer is accredited as an electronic issuer. “Clients who work with baVel do not need to go through the whole process of the initial test set because it is a stage that we have already passed at baVel (…) Now that we have experience, the deployment of a new electronic taxpayer can take less than a month“, explained Gilberto from Voxel Caribe.
A case study: Dominican Watchman
Eduardo Lovatón, Commercial Director at Voxel Caribe, and Caury de los Santos, Director of Administration and Finances at Dominican Watchman, shared a real case study with us.
Dominican Watchman is one of the first companies to become an electronic taxpayer of the DGII and has carried out the entire process hand in hand with Voxel Caribe and the baVel platform.
“We have a client portfolio that is used to paper, bundles of invoices, credit notes, delays in payments because the invoice was lost…”, explained Caury de los Santos of Dominican Watchman. “Before working with electronic invoicing we had to generate the invoice, print it, audit it, package it and send it. And then wait for confirmation and payment”.
And when asked about the benefits and advantages, de los Santos explained “the first advantage is the reduction in the time it takes to deliver the invoice. The second is the evolution in cash, the electronic invoice has accelerated collection. (…) On the reporting side, we have also improved. What used to take a lot of stress to prepare and validate the 607 is now reduced to a few minutes of review”.
The virtual session concluded with a round of questions from the attendees, who were very interested in this new DGII project. We also had the intervention of Eladio Rodríguez, Invoicing Manager at the DGII, who took the opportunity to congratulate Voxel Caribe for successfully completing the certification process to become an authorised supplier.
Watch the digital session again here:
Voxel Caribe is the first provider certified by the DGII to issue electronic tax receipts (e-CF) in the Dominican Republic. If you want us to help your company to become an electronic taxpayer of the DGII you can write to us at [email protected] or visit our website.
