Invoice management guide

Recommendations for managing electronic invoices

GUIDE

Contents

  1. Diagnosis of the situation
  2. Recommendations
  3. Advice and support

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This guide aims to offer a set of practical recommendations so that local administrations can optimize the management of electronic invoices received through the service. Efact. 

The adoption of these guidelines by the administration not only guarantees compliance with current regulations, but also promotes a more transparent and agile relationship with suppliers. 

The appropriate management of invoice statements is a key element in ensuring an efficient, understandable and easily traceable process, which facilitates monitoring by companies and reinforces trust in the public sector.

At the same time, the implementation of good internal practices —such as the definition of workflows, the designation of managers or the ongoing training of management teams— contributes to improving organizational efficiency and consolidating a culture of quality in municipal economic and financial management.

1. Diagnosis of the situation

Analysis of service usage data eFACT (first half of 2025) highlights several critical points: the existence of municipalities (14%) that do not report the mandatory states in more than half of the invoices they manage, and others (6%) that continue to receive them through the recipient portal.EACAT, which limits the management of states through manual tasks. 

Furthermore, in a significant group of municipalities (38%), the information on some of their invoices is reduced only to the final status —either payment or rejection— without offering any traceability of the route they have followed. This is aggravated by the fact that intermediate statuses are not communicated, such as the accounting register of invoices (RCF) or the payment order, which are essential to ensure transparència and monitoring. 

Overall, these shortcomings highlight the need to strengthen the appropriate use of the service. Efact and to enhance automation, in order to guarantee that invoices are processed in a more efficient, transparent and traceable manner.

2. Recommendations

Given the current situation, it is essential that we adopt concrete measures to convert the management of electronic invoices into a more agile, transparent and automated process. Adopting these improvements will not only increase efficiency, but will also strengthen the trust of providers and the quality of public service.

  • We are users of the receiver portal.Eacat who have accounting management software: they need to carry out the software connection to the service EfactThis allows automation in both the receipt of invoices and the management of their statuses. This avoids having to perform manual actions on each invoice —such as downloading it, modifying its status or checking if it includes attached files— and significantly reduces the possibility of errors in the process.

Likewise, there are other recommended revisions to ensure efficient invoice management:

  • Update DIR3 codes (accounting office, processing unit and management body) to ensure that suppliers always have the correct information.
  • Agile communication of rejections: if an invoice has management or business errors, it must be rejected promptly and the reason must be clearly stated. Point out that the service Efact It performs a series of basic technical and formal validations (file structure, Invoice format, presence of mandatory fields, etc.), but it is the responsibility of the recipient to review so that there are no administrative, contractual or duplicate identification errors and inconsistencies, among others.

In addition to the above indications, it is advisable for public administrations to adopt a set of good organizational and management practices that contribute to guaranteeing efficiency, transparència and regulatory compliance in the processing of electronic invoices. These measures, which range from the clear definition of internal roles to improving communication with suppliers and ongoing training for teams, allow the consolidation of a more robust and reliable invoicing system.

  • Designate clear responsibilities for the reception and validation of invoices within the organization.
  • Defined workflows: establish deadlines and internal steps for the review, validation and approval of invoices.
  • Transparència and communication with suppliers: provide clear guides and instructions on the public entity's web portal on how to issue an invoice correctly, as well as the support channels available to suppliers for queries and/or incidents.
  • Regulatory monitoring and compliance: It is necessary to establish strict control over payment terms in order to guarantee compliance with current regulations. To make this possible, it is very useful to have dashboards and periodic reports that allow monitoring the volume of invoices received, accepted and rejected, as well as the processing times associated with each of these phases. In addition, it is advisable to carry out internal audits on a regular basis to review procedures, identify possible inefficiencies and ensure at all times the transparència and the correct application of the regulations.
  • Continuous learning and improvement:  It is essential to promote good management practices among the accounting and intervention teams, with internal protocols and specific training. It is also necessary to stay up to date with the latest service updates Efact, which often incorporate new intermediate states and functionalities that improve the visualization and monitoring of invoices, contributing to more transparent, efficient management aligned with the needs of suppliers and the administration.

3. Advice and support

For any queries related to the implementation of these recommendations, local entities can contact the AOC Consortium Territorial Dynamization and Advice Unit through the mail dinamitzacio@aoc.cat, or with your regional representative of the Regional Council, who can offer you advice and direct guidance.