Electronic invoicing 2026: the company's guide

The French e-invoicing reform is usually told from the accounting firm's side. Yet it starts inside your company. On 1 September 2026, every VAT-liable business in France, from the smallest shop to the largest group, must be able to receive electronic invoices. And for the finance function, getting connected is only the opening move: the reform changes the shape of daily work, on the supplier side and on the customer side alike.

This guide covers the company side: the timeline, the players, then what your finance team will actually have to absorb once the plumbing is in. The firm's side has its own guide.

The timeline, seen from your company

Two dates, subject to last-minute regulatory adjustments:

• 1 September 2026: every VAT-liable business must be able to receive electronic invoices. Large companies and mid-caps (ETI) also start issuing them.
• 1 September 2027: the obligation to issue extends to SMEs and micro-businesses.

The most common misreading in SMEs: "we have until 2027". For issuing, yes. For receiving, no: from September 2026, your large and mid-cap suppliers will invoice electronically, and their platforms will look your company up in the central directory. If you are not connected, their invoices stop reaching you.

A platform to exchange, a portal for the administration

The public invoicing portal (PPF) was scaled back in late 2024 to two roles: the central directory of recipients, and gathering data for the tax administration. It does not carry your invoices. To issue or receive, you must go through a partner dematerialisation platform (PDP), registered with the French tax administration (DGFiP) - official texts also call them approved platforms.

In practice, the choice is often half-made before anyone frames it: your management software pushes its own platform, your accountant recommends theirs. It remains your decision, and a data decision as much as a plumbing one: a platform sees your customers, your suppliers, your prices and your payment terms go by. The criteria that matter, hosting and reversibility included, are in our guide to choosing a PDP.

Invoices that become data

Between businesses, the PDF attached to an email is living its last months. Invoices now travel in structured or hybrid formats: Factur-X (a human-readable PDF paired with a data file), UBL and CII. Every invoice you issue or receive becomes usable data, with a tracked lifecycle: submitted, rejected, paid. Its status is visible on both sides of the exchange, and the administration receives the data that concerns it.

E-reporting, if you sell to consumers or abroad

Transactions outside the domestic business-to-business scope - sales to consumers, cross-border operations - fall under e-reporting: the periodic transmission of transaction and payment data to the administration, through your platform. If you take B2C revenue (retail, restaurants, services, e-commerce), that is an extra reporting flow to organise, on top of e-invoicing itself.

What your finance function absorbs

Most guides stop at the connection step. The real subject starts after it: once the pipes are laid, what changes in a finance team's week?

The supplier flow becomes daily and standardised. What used to arrive in a loose pile - paper, PDFs, supplier portals - now arrives as structured data, through the platform, every day. Each invoice waits for a coding entry, a match against the order or the receipt, an approval to pay. Monthly batch sorting gives way to a continuous feed.

The approval circuit is visible from outside. Accepting, rejecting, paying: these gestures become statuses that travel through the platforms and that the administration expects. A poorly justified rejection, or an approval sleeping in someone's signing folder, now shows up in your supplier's own tool. Internal discipline becomes a supplier-relationship matter.

Processes and invoice wording need reworking. Directory registration, mandatory invoice mentions, payment terms, training for purchasing and accounting teams: compliance cuts across finance, procurement and IT. It is a cross-functional project, with an owner and a deadline.

Customer chasing finally rests on statuses. You will know whether your invoice was received, rejected or paid. The lost-invoice excuse disappears, and the reminder can go out at the right moment, on the right grounds. Provided someone watches those statuses, every day, across the whole ledger.

Four different loads, one shared profile: daily flows of structured data, demanding plenty of attention and little judgment.

A structured flow is exactly what an agent knows how to process

The very trait that creates the load - standardised data arriving continuously - is also what makes it delegable. An agent reads the structured invoice, proposes the coding, matches it against the order, prepares the reminder that fits each outstanding item's status. Your team keeps what requires judgment: approving the payment, settling discrepancies, deciding. The agent prepares, the human decides.

That is the work our agents for finance teams take on, on an instance in France, inside your existing tools, whichever platform you pick. Companies that equip themselves before September absorb the reform with the team they have; the others will discover the flow and its load at the same time.

The company's checklist

1. Map your flows: who invoices you, whom you invoice, what falls under e-reporting (B2C, international).
2. Choose your platform (the criteria here) and register in the directory.
3. Test receiving before September 2026, on a real scope, with your main suppliers.
4. Adapt the internal circuit: coding, approval, payment release, knowing that statuses are now visible from outside.
5. Decide who processes the flow: the current team, extra hands, or an agent that prepares while the team approves.

Frequently asked questions

What must be in place by 1 September 2026, and by 1 September 2027?

By 1 September 2026, every VAT-liable business must be connected to an approved platform and listed in the directory, in order to receive. Large companies and mid-caps must additionally issue electronically and transmit their e-reporting. By 1 September 2027, issuing extends to SMEs and micro-businesses. Receiving, though, does not wait until 2027.

We only receive in 2026: do we still need a platform?

Yes. Since its scope was narrowed, the public portal does not carry invoices: it holds the directory and gathers tax data. To be reachable in the directory and receive your suppliers' invoices, your company must be connected to an approved platform, even if it issues nothing before 2027.

What is e-reporting, concretely?

The periodic transmission to the administration, through your platform, of data on your transactions outside domestic e-invoicing: sales to consumers and international operations, with the related payment data. It follows the issuing calendar and lets the administration reconstruct the VAT due on those flows.

What role for your accountant?

A central one before the deadline: helping choose the platform, organising the connection, updating invoice wording and processes. The reform does not move the daily work out of the company, though: the approval circuit, the payment release and the chasing stay with you. The division of roles is best prepared together; the reform seen from the firm covers the other half of the subject.