Legal archiving of e-invoices is separate from approved platform duties
E-invoice legal archiving is a distinct requirement under the new regulations, not handled by approved platforms. Businesses must choose from five solutions: archiving tools, audit trails, electronic signatures, seals, or digital safes.
Legal archiving of e-invoices is a separate function from the services provided by approved platforms under the new regulations. Businesses must implement their own archiving solution to meet the 10-year retention requirement and can choose from five approaches, ranging from basic compliance tools to high-security digital safes.
Legal archiving of e-invoices is not part of the job of approved platforms, even though archiving is a core requirement of the new regulations.
The regulations mandate structured channels for sending and receiving e-invoices and stronger rules for secure storage. But approved platforms do not archive invoices themselves. Businesses must find their own archiving solution.
What the law requires
E-invoices must be kept for 10 years from the date of issue. This rule adapts existing paper-based archiving requirements to the electronic format. The archived version has the same legal value as the original.
Legal archiving is defined by tax law (the General Tax Code and Tax Procedure Book) and commercial law (the Commercial Code). A reliable audit trail with legal proof value is not mandatory but is strongly recommended. It strengthens legal protection in case of tax audit or dispute.
Note: legal archiving (10 years) is separate from the tax retention requirement (6 years).
Five solutions exist
Businesses can choose from five approaches:
Archiving tool. Stores invoices and makes them easy to find. Meets basic compliance needs.
Reliable audit trail. Records who sent and received each invoice, when, any changes made, and proof of sending and receipt. Essential for tax audits or disputes with third parties.
Electronic signature. Replaces a handwritten signature. Comes from an identified person. Simple and advanced signatures suit low to medium risk documents. Qualified signatures are for high-risk or regulated transactions.
Electronic seal. Replaces a company stamp. Commits the organization rather than an individual. Two standards apply: RGS (the French standard) and eIDAS (the European standard). Sage uses RGS level 2, which issues a cryptographic USB key to the company.
Digital safe. The highest level of protection. Stores invoices with a trusted third-party archiver in a secure system that guarantees integrity, time-stamping, and traceability. Makes tampering impossible and allows retrieval for unlimited time. Suits multi-entity or heavily regulated businesses in sectors like health, finance, security, real estate, and law.
Combining compliance with efficiency
Signatures and seals add no legal compliance value to archiving. But they strengthen cybersecurity by proving authenticity.
A digital safe provides maximum legal proof value and makes audit trails and signatures unnecessary. However, pairing an archiving tool with a digital safe is still useful. It separates daily efficiency functions from protection functions.
Sage offers a full range: compliant archiving, archiving with legal proof value, and digital safes. The strength of the portfolio is native integration with accounting software. E-invoice archiving flows smoothly with invoice processing.