Optimized creation and exchange of e-documents in Business Central
Governments across the world, and particularly in Europe, are implementing mandatory electronic invoicing. To be compliant with these e-invoicing requirements, companies must be able to create and exchange e-documents based on one of the accepted e-documents formats like CII or UBL. Out-of-the-box, Business Central does not support all e-documents standards. FORNAV E-invoicing extends the built-in e-invoicing feature in Business Central.
Additional standards supported
Standard Business Central supports the UBL standard such as XRechnung UBL, allowing you to create and manually exchange UBL-based e-documents.
FORNAV E-invoicing provides additional support to BC customers using other e-invoicing standards. This means that FORNAV lets you create and work with CII-based e-documents such as ZUGFeRD or the CII XRechnung, but also to comply to the needs of any of your business partners (customers, suppliers) using CII-based e-documents.
Automated exchange of e-documents
Out of the box, standard BC lets you manually exchange (send or receive an attachment to an e-mail) XRechnung UBL e-documents. However, as the number of e-documents exchanged increase exponentially, manually using the BC “send email” functionality becomes a heavy process.
FORNAV E-invoicing offers an automated way to exchange (import and send) CII and UBL-based e-documents through a seamless integration with Peppol. This includes automatic look-up of companies in the Peppol Directory as well as preview and validation of e-documents before sending.
FORNAV is a registered Peppol Access Point, so BC customers do not have to bear the burden of having to find a Peppol Access Provider and make an individual agreement for the transport of your e-documents.
Learn how to efficiently create, manage, and transmit e-documents in BC using FORNAV E-invoicing.
Why use FORNAV E-invoicing
FORNAV E-invoicing strategically complements the standard e-invoicing capabilities in Business Central.
For Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central users that must meet e-invoicing standards (for example, companies in Germany), Microsoft recommends turning to partner-developed apps such as FORNAV electronic invoice support for XRechnung and ZUGFeRD.
The FORNAV solution is easy to implement and simple to use and allows Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central clients to comply with existing and upcoming mandatory regulations. The FORNAV solution supports your e-invoicing needs – it allows you to:
– Create XRechnung- and ZUGFeRD-compliant e-invoices in Business Central
– Send these invoices to relevant public authorities or business partners via email
– Import XRechnung- and ZUGFeRD-compliant e-invoices in Business Central
To make your Business Central Word and FORNAV documents (for example, invoices and credit memo reports) ZUGFeRD or XRechnung compliant, all you have to do is install the FORNAV extension.
As for any FORNAV solutions, FORNAV E-invoicing is:
– Fast to implement, with a quick setup that allows you to be e-invoicing compliant within minutes and without additional setup or coding. It supports FORNAV reports and documents as well as standard Microsoft RDLC and Word documents.
– Easy to use with a seamless integration to Peppol, allowing for automated e-document transport, automatic look-up of companies in the Peppol Directory and validation of e-documents before sending. It comes out of the box with a set of Business Central Tables representing a superset of profiles and provides a default mapping to Business Central Sales Invoice, Sales Credit Memo, Purchase Invoice and Purchase Credit Memo documents.
– Affordable as FORNAV E-Invoicing is included in the standard FORNAV All-in-one license. This also means that existing FORNAV customers already have access to it – at no extra cost. All they have to do is activate it and complete the simple setup.
More about FORNAV E-invoicing in local languages:
Get started faster with you Business Central documents
“We find that in most cases, the standard FORNAV Report Pack meets our customers’ needs with minimal adjustments. This advantage allows us to use them as a foundation, saving time and effort compared to creating reports from scratch. FORNAV is the perfect answer to the struggle it can be to create reports in Business Central.”
THE FORNAV DIFFERENCE
FORNAV is a registered Peppol Access Point
This means that FORNAV is a registered Peppol Access Point, so you do not have to bear the burden of having to find a Peppol Access Provider and make an individual agreement for the transport of your e-documents. Just set up FORNAV Peppol Plus and you are ready to go!
All e-invoicing exchange costs are included in the All-in-one FORNAV license
This means that FORNAV FORNAV E-invoicing comes at a fixed subscription price, regardless of the number of e-invoices exchanged (based on fair usage principles)).
Look up your business partners in the Peppol Directory
Using FORNAV E-invoicing, you can automatically lookup your business partners in the Peppol Directory, making your e-invoicing processes simpler and faster.
Preview your e-documents before sending
Using FORNAV E-invoicing, you can preview your e-documents before sharing.
Simple and fast setup
Many of the BC e-invoicing solutions are complex to set up, resulting in a long, error-prone and often expensive setup process. FORNAV E-invoicing is fast to implement, with a quick setup that allows you to be e-invoicing compliant within minutes.
All the FORNAV Solutions
FAQ – FORNAV E-invoicing
Why is e-invoicing important?
E-invoicing is rapidly replacing paper invoices reducing manual work, minimizing errors, and accelerating payment processing. It’s gradually becoming mandatory in many European and other countries to improve tax transparency and efficiency.
For businesses, compliance with these regulations is essential to avoid penalties, streamline financial workflows, and keep being competitive in global markets. As a natural consequence, businesses using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (BC) need an easy, secure, and affordable way to create and exchange e-documents.
Why do I need FORNAV E-invoicing in addition of the Business Central e-invoicing functionality?
FORNAV extends the standard BC functionality with functionality to support the creation and automated exchange of e-documents using the Peppol network.
Out of the box, BC lets you manually exchange (i.e. sending or receiving as email + attachment) XRechnung UBL e-documents. BC does not offer any automated transport of e-documents. Practically, this means that you will have to use the “send email” functionality in BC to send out your e-invoices as attachments. And, you will have to manually import the invoices that you receive by email into BC.
If you want to automatically exchange e-document, Microsoft recommends ISV solutions such as FORNAV E-invoicing.
When using FORNAV E-Invoicing, you can do all standard BC can do (creation and manual exchange of XRechnung UBL e-documents) – but you also get:
- The possibility to create and transport CII e-documents (ZUGFeRD and XRechnung)
- The automated transport of e-documents through a seamless integration with Peppol including automatic look-up of companies in the Peppol Directory as well as preview and validation of e-documents before sending
What e-documents formats are supported in standard BC?
Standard Business Central supports UBL (for example XRechnung UBL). However, if you are using or planning to use CII-based documents such as ZUGFeRD and the CII XRechnung, you will have to complement BC with another solution.
Is this potentially an issue? Not necessarily, but it can be. Many companies have already started using CII-based e-documents, for example ZUGFeRD or XRechnung. If this is your case, you need more than the standard BC functionality. Also, if any of your business partners (customers, suppliers) use CII-based e-documents, you will need a system that supports the CII format – and therefore you will need more than the standard BC functionality.
What is ZUGFeRD?
ZUGFeRD, short for “Zentraler User Guide des Forums elektronische Rechnung Deutschland” (Central User Guide of the Forum for Electronic Invoices Germany), is an open standard for electronic invoices. Developed in Germany, ZUGFeRD is designed to facilitate the exchange of structured electronic invoices in a format that combines both human-readable and machine-readable data.
The core idea behind ZUGFeRD invoices is to create universally compatible invoices that can be read and understood by humans while also being processed efficiently by computer systems. It achieves this through the use of PDF/A-3, a standard PDF format, combined with an embedded XML file. This unique combination ensures that the invoice is accessible to all, regardless of the recipient’s technological capabilities, while also enabling automated data extraction and processing.
While XRechnung is compulsory for public procurement, ZUGFeRD is an alternative option for broader invoicing needs. It is widely used in both the public and private sectors due to its flexibility.
The current XRechnung and ZUGFeRD standards only allow two XML formats for the transmission of electronic invoices: either UBL or UNCEFACT/CII. The ForNAV e-invoicing solution supports the UNCEFACT/CII standard.
What is XRechnung?
XRechnung is an XML-based invoice format that has been chosen as the standard for electronic invoicing for public sector clients in Germany, to comply with EU directive 2014/55/EU. EU directive 2014/55/EU requires the use of electronic invoicing in public procurement across the EU to improve efficiency and reduce costs.
The XRechnung standard defines how invoice information should be formatted and transmitted using XML. It ensures that various software systems can receive and process electronic invoices seamlessly.
What is Factur-X?
In addition to ZUGFeRD and XRechnung, another notable electronic invoices standard has gained prominence: Factur-X.
Factur-X (FacturX) is a format used primarily in France and that is designed to be compatible with both French and German invoicing requirements. While it originated in France, it has gained recognition in other European countries as well, making it suitable for international invoicing. It combines the advantages of both PDF and XML formats, making invoices human-readable while maintaining machine-readability.
What is Peppol?
One of the easiest and most secure ways of distributing e-invoices while meeting regulatory requirements is using the fully automated transmission via the Peppol network (Pan-European Public Procurement On Line). Peppol is a compilation of components and specifications enabling the standardized exchange of documents between different business partners, using the infrastructure of the Peppol network.
Sending e-invoices using the Peppol network is one of the transmission methods accepted by all authorities, and the only one supporting machine-to-machine communication and the mass sending of e-invoices.
Out of the box, Microsoft supports the creation and manual exchange (sending or receiving as an attachment to an email) of XRechnung UBL e-documents. The transport of e-documents is not included. To automatically exchange e-documents from Business Central, you need an additional solution – FORNAV Peppol Plus is that solution.