Tentacles of NF-e
Source: Information Week Brasil - SP - NEWS - 06/08/2009
Although many companies view the delivery of their data in digital form to the tax authorities as yet another obligation and see the only advantage of the decrease in paper costs, the positive effects are undeniable for the whole society due to the reduction in the Brazilian Cost. Standardization of information and simplification of obligations towards the tax authorities, as well as reduction of tax evasion and its inspection costs are examples of these effects.
In addition to reducing paper costs (including filing costs for thousands of documents), electronic invoices (NF-e) have the potential to provide other benefits to companies. Among them, a shorter time for transporting goods due to greater agility in inspection posts, reduction of bureaucracy and unfair competition due to the greater reliability of the NF-e. The integration of the supply chain through the aggregation of information to the electronic document is another possibility.
Alberto Pasqualini - Refap SI A, a Petrobras System company, is an oil refinery located in Canoas (RS), with annual gross operating revenue of around R $ 13 billion and one of the largest ICMS taxpayers in the State of Rio Grande do Sul Classified in the line of activity “producers, formulators and importers of liquid fuels, as defined and authorized by the competent federal agency”, in accordance with ICMS Protocol 30107, we are obliged to issue the electronic invoice from April 1st of last year. As we use the management system (ERP) provided by Petrobras, we do not participate directly in the development of the software for the NF-e. However, the responsibility for the data sent to the State Finance Secretariat (Sefaz) is ours. So, we had to make sure that the system was generating the information correctly. However, even if it works apparently well, it is very important to investigate the data in detail in the various situations of NF-e emission. The participation of the accounting / tax area was essential to verify that all calculations and values within the XML file were in accordance with the legislation.
Other sectors at Refap also needed to get involved, such as billing, which checked registration data, products and transportation, and accounts receivable, which checked payment information. During the implementation, we carried out a parallel test that consisted of issuing the invoice in the conventional form and also sending it in electronic form to Sefaz. This test was very effective in finding and correcting many problems, but it also required extra attention from the billing staff. Another action of great efficiency was the early clearance of the recipient registry, since most rejections by Sefaz, during the parallel test, occurred due to simple errors such as invalid characters in certain fields.
DIGITAL CERTIFICATE
The guarantee of the legal validity of the NF-e is the digital signature included within the XML file through a Digital Certificate provided by a Certifying Authority (AC) accredited to ICP-BR (Brazilian Public Key Infrastructure). The same Digital Certificate can be used to sign any electronic document, so security measures must be taken to prevent its misuse. The Digital Certificate has limited validity (one to three years, depending on the CA) and must be renewed before it expires. If it expires, the NF-e will not be accepted by Sefaz. Therefore, the activity of obtaining and renewing it is critical. The curious thing is that this activity did not exist before the NF-e and was initially under the responsibility of TI. After the first renovation, we came to the conclusion that the activity is much more linked to the company's documentation than IT. HARDWARE Although the document valid for transit of goods is electronic, due to technical limitations of the inspection and many recipients, it is still necessary to print a sheet of paper with the invoice data to accompany the transport. Danfe (Auxiliary Document of Electronic Invoice) can be printed on plain paper in A4 format. In this way, printers (preferably laser) must be positioned at the emission points. We also had to have security forms manufactured to print Danfe in contingency situations when it was not possible to send the NF-e to Sefaz. Until today, we have not had to trigger the contingency. Barcode readers were (and are) very useful to expedite the consultation of NF-e on the Sefaz website and were distributed at billing points and in accounting. As we now receive Danfe from suppliers, we also equip the ordinances that register documents that enter the refinery.
CORPORATE
NF-e and electronic documents are a paradigm shift that is difficult to explain to people used to paper documents. Thus, we had to carefully inform the affected internal and external public.