Portuguese SAF-T
Portugal was the first country to introduce Standard Audit File for Tax (SAF-T) on 1 January 2008.
Initially, there was a requirement for VAT registered businesses to be able to extract and submit a SAF-T file to the tax authorities.
Portuguese SAF-T data types
- General Ledger and entries
- Supplier master data
- Product master data
- Tax table
- Sales invoices
- Movements of goods
Monthly sales invoices & logistics SAF-T
In 2013, this was extended to resident tax payers being required to submit to the Portuguese tax website monthly in SAF-T format:
- Sales invoices (Jan 2013)
- Transport logistics document support (Jul 2013)
- Cash receipts for the VAT Cash Accounting Scheme (Oct 2013)
Submissions must be completed with the normal VAT return by the 20th of the month following. Non-resident VAT registered businesses are exempted from Portuguese SAF-T requirements.
E-factura invoice approval
In 2015, a new digital signature invoice approval system, E-Factura, was introduced for the approval of invoices with NIF numbers. Companies providing SAF-T submissions are not required to comply with this new system.
About SAF-T
SAF-T is an electronic schema developed for the efficient exchange of information between the tax authorities and businesses. It was created by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in 2005 as a standard to be used globally to ensure consistency from country-to-country to facilitate exchange of data between tax authorities. The file requirements are expressed using XML, although the EU does not specify the exact file format.
There are generally five reporting requirements:
- General ledger and supporting journals
- Accounts payable, including supplier master data and invoices
- Accounts Receivable, with customer master data and invoices
- Warehouse inventories, and master data
- Fixed assets ledger, including amortisation
Other resources
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