Digital invoice

What is a digital invoice?

If you can view and process an invoice digitally, it is a ‘digital invoice’. Think of an invoice in Word or PDF format. Sending an email with such a digital invoice as an attachment is NOT e-invoicing or electronic invoicing. So what is the difference from an e-invoice?

A digital invoice contains unstructured data. It can be read using recognition technology (OCR), which makes it easier to enter and process in accounting software than, for example, paper documents.

A PDF file (Portable Document Format) is readable for people, but harder for a computer. The layout of a PDF file is not structured enough for automatic processing. The electronic invoice is, in the form of a so-called XML file, drawn up according to the UBL standard (Universal Business Language). Both terms, UBL and XML, are sometimes used interchangeably in e-invoicing. Put simply, a UBL file is the invoice in XML format. People sometimes also speak of a ‘UBL invoice’. This makes the invoice readable for the computer. Thanks to the fixed structure of an e-invoice, it can then be imported and processed without manual intervention in, for example, accounting software.

Digital invoices in onFact

When you invoice with onFact, the program sends both a PDF and an XML file. Readable for the customer when paying and quickly processable by the accountant’s software.