Business Central and E-Invoicing in France: What Your ERP Has to Handle

An electronic invoice is not a PDF attached to an email: it is a structured file, sent through a platform approved by the French tax authority. For a company subject to the issuing obligation, sending by email, PDF or paper no longer meets the requirement. Three formats are accepted: UBL, CII, and a mixed format combining a CII file with a PDF, commonly called Factur-X. Your ERP must produce one of these formats, send it to your platform, receive supplier invoices and track the status of each invoice.

Business Central relies on an e-documents module, available since version 23 released in 2023, covering both sales and purchase flows. For France, Microsoft added a dedicated feature in 2026: it produces invoices in UBL (Peppol BIS 3) and Factur-X (EN 16931 profile), imports purchase invoices received in both formats and checks several French rules before sending. One point to remember: Microsoft is not an approved platform. Business Central connects to your platform through a connector, and the contract is signed with the platform itself. Among the connectors offered by default, Avalara, B2BRouter and Pagero appear on the official list of approved platforms.

The reform adds four mentions to invoices: the customer's SIREN number, the delivery address when it differs from the customer's, the category of operation (goods, services or both) and, where relevant, the option to pay VAT on debits. The authority does not expect them all at once: SIREN, category and the debits option are sent from 2026, the delivery address and line details from 1 September 2027. In Business Central, this is prepared in the cards: your company's SIREN and SIRET, each customer's SIREN and electronic receiving address, the goods or services nature of items, resources and accounts. It is often the longest task, and it does not depend on Microsoft: an incomplete card means an invoice that may be rejected by the platform.

This obligation already applies to every company. In Business Central, supplier invoices arrive through the platform and are imported by a scheduled job, or manually if needed. The system recognises the supplier, notably by VAT number, creates a draft and then a purchase invoice or order, and blocks duplicates. If the invoice carries the order number, the link is automatic, and line matching can use a tolerance you set. Note that an invoice received as a PDF remains valid for payment and VAT deduction: the reform changes the channel, not the validity of what is already in progress.

Each invoice now has a lifecycle tracked by the platforms. Four statuses are mandatory and reported to the authority: submitted, rejected (technical rejection by a platform), refused (by the customer, and only for a reason allowed by the standard) and collected. The last one is yours to send for services whose VAT is due on collection: it carries the date and amount received. For sales to consumers and international operations, e-reporting takes over, at a frequency set by your VAT regime: every ten days, monthly or every two months. Business Central handles payments in its e-documents module and offers an e-reporting format for France. Check with your platform who computes the daily totals expected for consumer sales.

The 2026 Finance Act raised the penalties: €50 per invoice not issued electronically, capped at €15,000 a year, and €500 per missing e-reporting transmission, with the same cap. The authority announced that no penalty would apply in 2026, and its guide stresses documented progress towards compliance: this grace period does not move the timeline. Another date affects your invoice templates directly: on 1 January 2027, VAT rules move from the General Tax Code to the new Code of taxes on goods and services. Legal references printed on invoices will need to follow, the old ones remaining accepted until 30 June 2028.

Check your version: the French feature ships with recent Business Central versions, and an older installation must be updated first. Choose your platform, making sure it is on the official list and offers a Business Central connector. Complete your cards: SIREN, addresses, goods or services nature. Test reception with a few suppliers before rolling out. Prepare issuing for 2027 by sending your first electronic invoices before the deadline: an SME may issue voluntarily before its date, but a customer cannot force it to.