Lately we have seen lots of foreign developers facing the challenge of developing NFe solutions for brazilian companies.
As we now have some customers in this situation we will release content in english to make it easy for these developers to accomplish this challenge.
What is the NFe (Nota Fiscal Eletrônica or Electronic Invoice)
Until 2008 invoices in Brazil were issued in paper. Any company could get the authorization to print a certain number of unfilled invoices so they could fill it and send to their customers.
Since 2008 Brazilian government has adopted an electornic invoice system, making it mandatory to any brazilian company that sells products.
The electronic version of invoices are issued one by one and pre-filled by the company. Meaning that each and every sale (or importing) transaction is informed to the government that authorizes one by one. Obviously this is made in an automated way, called NFe.
The process of issuing a NFe
First of all one should fill a XML file containing, information about the issuer, the receiver, the products, the taxes (wich are very, very complicated in Brazil), the way it will be transported, how it will be paid and so on.
The second step will be to digitally sign this XML document using a digital certificate compliant with ICP-Brasil standards.
Third step is to communicate with the government servers, using SOAP technology. Government receives the transaction and “tells” you the estimated time it will have an answer (rarely being more than 5 seconds).
After that time we query the server to see if it have an answer. If the invoice is authorized then we are able to generate the DANFe (short for Auxiliar Document of the NFe). By law we have to inform the receiver via email that the NFe is successfully issued.
By law the issuer must keep the XML file for at least 5 years.
Focus NFe service
As it turns out, the XML file is very complicated, it has many fields and rules according to the type of the company and the kind of taxes it pays. Furthermore the communication with government computers may be tricky as each state has it’s own servers and there are redundancy servers with little communication specificities.
The Focus NFe service has a simple text file for communication and a very simple return file as well. All the details and communication with each server in the country is handled by our service. The generation of DANFe is handled by Focus NFe. The service also sends the NFe to the receiver and keeps the XML file safe for as long as the service contract is active.
Brazilian fiscal law is complicated and is constantly changing. We keep our service compliant to the law at all times, and every time it is possible, we do not change the communication files layout. (It is important to say that the API do not calculate taxes, so changes in taxes must be handled by the programmer).
O post NFe – Brazilian Electronic Invoice System apareceu primeiro em Acras.
