Co-entry invoice: invoice for several parties

An invoice is a tax document that must be issued whenever a company sells goods or provides services to a counterparty. The purpose of the invoice is to summarise the salient features of the transaction carried out. The information on the issuer (transferee or principal) and the purchaser (taxable person) must also be included.

It often happens, however, that an invoice is drawn up for a good supplied or a service provided to several persons. An example would be a notarial deed drawn up in favour of several persons in the case of joint ownership of a property.

❓ What invoice is issued in these special cases? Is it possible to make an invoice out to several persons? In this article we will discuss the jointly-owned invoice.

❔ How should one be drawn up? What are the regulations in force? Let's take a look together in this article at all the characteristics of a joint invoice.

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What is a joint invoice?

We speak of a joint invoice when the invoice tax document concerns services rendered to several contractors and is therefore issued to more than one party.

There are, in fact, certain fields, such as, for example, tax consultancy or legal practice, in which the need to address invoices to several contractors is particularly strong.

Joint invoicing: the regulations

The reference regulations on general invoicing, whether electronic or paper, can be found in Article 21 of Presidential Decree 633/1972. It specifies that there is an obligation to document the disposal of goods or provision of services by issuing an invoice. The invoice may be issued either in paper format (when required by law) or electronically.

The article also specifies the following:

• If the contractors are entities, enterprises or companies, the indication of the firm is required together with the name and company name of both the firm and the recipient;
• If the contracting parties are entities other than institutions, enterprises or companies, then the name and surname of those entities must be explicitly indicated.

👀 On the other hand, there are no problems in the case of a joint invoice in the case of a paper invoice; it is therefore possible to enter several names manually without too many difficulties.

Problems arise in the case of electronic invoicing. In fact, the telematic issuance of the invoice could lead to an obstacle, since the XML format only requires the entry of one holder.

The question that arises is: how are the addressees to be indicated in the case of a joint e-invoice? We will see in a moment. In the meantime, let us define a couple of premises established by law.

In 2017, the Revenue Agency provided guidance on this in Resolution No. 87/E of 5/07/2017. In it, the following was specified:

• There is the possibility of issuing a joint e-invoice only in the event that the supply of goods or provision of services is performed in favour of a private party (B2C invoice).
• There is no possibility of issuing a joint e-invoice between VAT parties (B2B invoice).

☝ Thus, if the invoice concerns transactions carried out between entities, businesses or companies, the use of a joint e-invoice is not permitted.

Co-invoice: parameters to be followed for correct issuance

Resolution No. 87/E of 5/07/2017 also expressed the coordinates for including the addressees in the electronically drafted invoice.

In the case of a contested invoice, only one addressee must be indicated in the XML document in the 'Fiscal Identifiers' section: the Interchange System (SdI) does not allow, in fact, the insertion of more than one addressee.

Therefore, the e-Invoicing system allows only one recipient to be entered in the appropriate section. Therefore, in order to issue a joint invoice, i.e. in favour of more than one holder, it will still be necessary to enter only one name in the field dedicated to the dealer or principal.

👉 O ther payees may also be entered, but in optional fields not subject to control by the Interchange System.

Optional fields are not usually subject to control by the Interchange System (SdI) and may be as follows:

→ "Other Management Data";

→ "Causal".

This will circumvent the problem of entering several recipients for the same invoice in a system where only one can be added.

☝ The Inland Revenue has not provided exact instructions as to the correct method of issuing a joint e-invoice. Therefore, what has been expressed so far consists more of a practical implementation suggestion than an indication of how it should be done.

In fact, the issuance of a joint e-invoice depends very much on the type of software one uses to perform e-invoicing. Indeed, there are software packages that allow the actual indication of several recipients, while others do not provide for this possibility at all.

The data to be included in a joint invoice

Every invoice, therefore, whichever method of issue is chosen, requires the entry of certain data. This information to be entered is the same whatever the type of invoice: it must not be missing, otherwise the document will be invalid for tax purposes.

The data to be entered and which must necessarily be present are:

• The data relating to the issuer of the invoice (name and surname, address of registered office, VAT number, tax code);
• The data relating to the recipient of the invoice (name and surname, address of registered office, VAT number, tax code);
• The sequential number: from the beginning of the year, invoices must be numbered consecutively, starting with number 1;
• The description of the good sold or service provided to which the invoice refers;
• The amount of VAT, i.e. how much payment is made with and without VAT.

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Joint Invoicing: Commonly encountered problems

From a tax point of view, there are no particular problems with issuing jointly issued invoices. However, from a practical point of view, this type of tax measure can often be far from easy.

In fact, there are not many software packages that offer the possibility of performing this type of service, or the procedure itself may entail operational difficulties.

💭 In the event of unresolvable complications, it is still possible to issue a different invoice for each beneficiary of the transaction.

In order to avoid the difficulties presented by a joint invoice, therefore, it is always possible to choose to issue several invoices, one per contracting party. In this way, any problems can be circumvented in a practical and painless manner.