Invoicing foreign customers and other currencies

You issue an invoice for a customer abroad like any other. A few things are worth knowing.

Customer and language

Choose the customer’s Country on the document. With the automatic document language, the invoice is then printed in English (Czech only for the Czech Republic and Slovakia), see Using fakturum in English. The business register that fills in addresses and VAT IDs only knows Czech companies, so enter a foreign customer by hand.

Currency and exchange rate

Choose the currency on the document: CZK, EUR, USD or GBP. Set the default currency for new documents in Account, Document settings, Default values.

For a foreign currency, the exchange rate for the issue date is saved with the document. fakturum takes it from the Czech National Bank (ČNB). In Document settings you can switch the Exchange rate source to ECB (if ECB has no rate for that day, ČNB is used). On a single document you can override the rate by hand in the field Exchange rate (CZK per 1 unit of currency).

The exchange rate is not printed on the invoice and the amounts are shown only in the document currency.

Bank account, IBAN and payments

Add the IBAN and SWIFT to your bank account (Account, Bank accounts). They are then printed automatically on documents for a foreign country or in a foreign currency. If you also have a euro account, add it separately with its currency: the invoice form warns you when the document currency differs from the currency of the selected account.

A payment in a different currency than the invoice (for example a euro invoice paid to a crown account) is converted at the rate on the day of payment during payment matching, and the usual exchange rate difference is tolerated.

VAT: type of supply

When you choose a country other than the Czech Republic, the invoice shows a Type of supply field: service to the EU, supply of goods to the EU, export of goods outside the EU, service outside the EU, triangular trade as intermediary, and transfer of own assets to the EU. For VAT payers, fakturum uses it to put the document on the right line of the VAT return and into the EC Sales List (souhrnné hlášení).

• A document goes into the EC Sales List when it has an EU type of supply, a foreign country and the customer’s VAT ID. The XML is in the VAT overview, which also lists documents abroad that are missing the type of supply.
• Set the VAT rate on the items to 0. The app doesn’t change it based on the type of supply.
• Write any required wording, such as that the VAT is payable by the customer for a service to the EU, in the Note on the document (public). It isn’t added automatically.
• The Reverse charge switch is for the Czech domestic reverse charge (for example construction work, with a supply code), not for customers abroad. For a foreign customer use the type of supply.
• The VAT overview converts documents in a foreign currency to Czech crowns at the exchange rate stated on the document. A document without a rate is highlighted in red.

Checking the VAT ID

For a Czech DIČ, the customer detail shows whether the tax office lists the customer as a reliable VAT payer. fakturum doesn’t check foreign VAT IDs in the EU VIES system yet.