E-Invoicing Compliance: How to Automate It With AI Without Switching Systems

The scene repeats itself in hundreds of Spanish accounting firms and SMBs: someone forwards an email to their advisor with the subject line “does this affect us?” Inside is an article about VERI*FACTU. Below it, another about mandatory e-invoicing. And a third that mixes the two. The advisor’s answer is usually honest and maddening in equal measure: “yes, it affects you, but they’re two separate things.”

The result is that many companies end up late for both. Some because they assume their accounting software “will handle it”. Others because they think emailing a PDF is enough. And quite a few because, after reading contradictory headlines for months, they decided to wait until things settle down.

The good news is that automating e-invoicing compliance does not require replacing your ERP or your accounting software. It requires understanding what each regulation actually demands and putting an automation layer on top of what you already run. That is precisely what we build with AI on top of Sage, A3, Contasol, Holded or whatever vertical software you use.

Two separate obligations almost everyone confuses

Before automating anything, it helps to keep the two regulations apart, because they have different origins, purposes and deadlines:

• VERI*FACTU comes from Law 11/2021 on the prevention of tax fraud, which added article 29.2.j) to the Spanish General Tax Act and was developed by Royal Decree 1007/2023, with the technical specification set out in Order HAC/1177/2024. Its goal is to make it impossible for any software to delete or alter an invoice once issued. It covers all your invoices, including those to consumers.
• Mandatory business-to-business (B2B) e-invoicing comes from Law 18/2022, the “Crea y Crece” Act, and targets something else entirely: late payment, and knowing when each invoice actually gets paid. It only covers transactions between businesses and professionals.

These are not alternatives. In time you will have to comply with both, and each runs on its own clock.

What VERI*FACTU requires, and from when

The regulation requires your invoicing system to generate an invoicing record for every invoice, chained to the previous one through a cryptographic hash. That chain is what makes rewriting history impossible: touch an old invoice and the chain breaks visibly.

From there, there are two compliance modes:

1. VERI*FACTU mode: the system sends every record to the Spanish tax authority (AEAT) automatically and effectively in real time. In exchange, other local security requirements are relaxed.
2. Non-VERI*FACTU mode: no real-time transmission, but every record must be electronically signed, an event log must be kept, and everything must remain available to the tax authority.

In both cases invoices carry a QR code. If you operate in transmission mode, the invoice must also display the wording “VERI*FACTU” or “invoice verifiable on the AEAT electronic office”.

The dates now in force were set by Royal Decree-Law 15/2025 of 2 December, which pushed back the original timetable: 1 January 2027 for corporate income taxpayers and 1 July 2027 for everyone else, including sole traders. Software vendors, by contrast, have had to offer compliant products with a declaration of conformity since 29 July 2025.

This is worth taking seriously: article 201 bis of the General Tax Act sets fines of up to €150,000 per financial year for anyone manufacturing or selling non-compliant invoicing software, and up to €50,000 per financial year for anyone holding or using it. If you pay tax in the Basque Country or Navarre, your regime is the regional one (TicketBAI and equivalents), not VERI*FACTU.

B2B e-invoicing finally has its regulation

For years the Crea y Crece Act sat “pending regulatory development”. Not any more. Royal Decree 238/2026 of 25 March, published in the Official State Gazette on 31 March 2026, develops the mandatory B2B e-invoicing system and has been in force since 20 April 2026.

Actual enforcement, however, is tied to the ministerial order governing the tax authority’s public invoicing solution. Once that order takes effect, the familiar countdown begins: 12 months for companies turning over more than €8 million and 24 months for everyone else.

The change that creates the most work is not issuing invoices in a structured format. It is a quieter new duty: reporting the status of every invoice — accepted, rejected, paid — within four calendar days. Silence counts as acceptance. Multiply that by the invoices you receive each month and you have a manual process nobody can sustain by hand.

Looking further ahead, Directive (EU) 2025/516 of 11 March 2025 — the ViDA package — will extend structured e-invoicing to intra-EU transactions from 1 July 2030. The European Commission estimated administrative savings of €4.1 billion per year once it becomes general from 2030 (European Commission, 2022).

How to automate compliance with AI without switching systems

Here is the practical part. The rules require the system that issues to be compliant, but nothing forces you to throw away your ERP. In most of the SMBs we work with, the flow ends up looking like this:

1. Compliant issuing on top of what you already have. The ERP still generates the invoice; a middle layer builds the record, chains it, signs it and — in VERI*FACTU mode — sends it to the tax authority, returning the QR code to the PDF. If your invoices come out of a PrestaShop or WooCommerce store, there are dedicated modules that do exactly this without touching the checkout.
2. Intelligent receiving. Supplier invoices arrive by email, portal or EDI in wildly different formats. AI reads them, extracts the data and normalises it — the same principle behind AI-powered OCR for business documents, with tax validation layered on top.
3. Automatic validation. Before anything is posted, tax ID, series, net amount, VAT rate and consistency with the purchase order or delivery note are all checked. What adds up goes through untouched; anything questionable lands in a human review queue.
4. Status reporting on time. The system issues the acceptance, rejection or payment acknowledgement inside the four-day window, without anyone having to remember.
5. ERP integration. The journal entry lands in Sage, A3, Contasol or Holded through an API or whatever connector each one supports. It is the same approach we describe when integrating AI with your ERP and accounting software.
6. Archiving and traceability. Everything is stored with its hash, its event log and its history, ready for an audit request.

AI does not replace the signing system — that is a technical, regulated matter — but it does solve 80% of the work surrounding an invoice: reading it, understanding it, classifying it, validating it and filing it where it belongs.

What you actually gain

The argument is not just “compliance”. It is that the same effort the law forces on you hands back a better process:

• No more manual keying. The cost of processing an invoice drops by 60% to 80% when you move from paper and loose PDFs to an automated electronic flow (Billentis, 2019).
• Fewer VAT errors, because validation is systematic rather than dependent on who happens to be in the office.
• Shorter month-end closes, since everything arrives pre-classified and ready to match. It pairs naturally with automated bank reconciliation.
• No surprises in an inspection, because traceability is a by-product of the system rather than a separate job.

When does automating it make sense?

Not every company needs the same thing. As a practical rule of thumb:

• Fewer than 30 invoices a month: focus on making your issuing software compliant before 2027. Automating receipt can wait.
• Between 50 and 300 invoices a month: this is where the return is clearest. Compliant issuing plus automated receiving typically frees up half a day to a full day of admin work.
• More than 300 invoices a month, or several legal entities: automation stops being an improvement and becomes the only realistic way to meet the four-day acknowledgement rule without hiring.
• Accounting and advisory firms: the most profitable case of all, because the same flow replicates client by client.

One scheduling note: do not wait until December 2026. Adapting how you issue invoices is quick, but cleaning up your customer master data, sorting out invoice series and testing the full flow takes weeks.

Frequently asked questions

Are VERI*FACTU and mandatory e-invoicing the same thing?

No. VERI*FACTU comes from Law 11/2021 and governs how your invoicing software must behave so invoices cannot be altered. B2B e-invoicing comes from Law 18/2022 and governs the format in which you exchange invoices with other businesses. Different rules, different deadlines, different purposes — and you will end up complying with both.

When exactly does VERI*FACTU apply to me?

Under Royal Decree-Law 15/2025, from 1 January 2027 if you pay corporate income tax, and from 1 July 2027 in all other cases, including sole traders. Software vendors have had to offer an adapted product since 29 July 2025, so you can already demand it from your provider today.

Do I have to replace my ERP or accounting software?

In most cases, no. What must be compliant is the system that generates the invoicing record. This can be solved with an integration layer on top of your existing ERP, provided the vendor updates its product or allows a connection. Switching software is the expensive, slow option — not the only one.

What happens if I miss the deadline?

Article 201 bis of the General Tax Act provides for up to €50,000 per financial year for holding or using non-compliant invoicing systems, and up to €150,000 per financial year for manufacturing or selling them. Beyond the fine, falling behind makes it harder to get paid by larger customers that already require structured invoices.

What if my company is based in the Basque Country or Navarre?

Then regional legislation applies — TicketBAI in the three Basque provinces and Navarre’s own system — rather than VERI*FACTU. They are different systems with obligations similar in spirit but with their own technical specifications. If you operate under both common and regional regimes, review your specific case with your advisor.

Can AI issue invoices for me?

AI neither signs nor transmits: that is the job of the compliant invoicing system. What AI does handle is everything surrounding the invoice — reading supplier documents, extracting data, spotting duplicates, validating VAT, classifying and proposing the journal entry. That is the part consuming hours today without adding value.

Obligation	Who it applies to	Key date
VERI*FACTU	Corporate income taxpayers	1 January 2027
VERI*FACTU	Sole traders and everyone else	1 July 2027
B2B e-invoicing	Turnover above €8M	12 months after the ministerial order
B2B e-invoicing	All other businesses and sole traders	24 months after the ministerial order
ViDA (EU)	Intra-EU transactions	1 July 2030

Contact us and we’ll analyse your case for free →