Creating your first sales invoice is a precious moment for a first-time founder kicking off her first business. As an Estonian e-resident founder, you can have access to digital tools that simplify this process, such as Envoice. It is a powerful invoicing and expense management SaaS integrated into Estonia’s digital business environment. This guide walks you through setting up your account and creating your first invoice using Envoice or our Word template.
Why Use Envoice for Your Estonian e-Resident Company?
Envoice is an Estonian software tailored for entrepreneurs managing their expenses online. The sales invoices module allows you to bill clients for your products and services easily. Envoice software enables you to create invoices that you can print, email or send electronically through the Estonian e-invoice roaming network if your clients are from Estonia. As a fun fact, you can’t invoice public sector clients in any other way in Estonia since 2019. You can also attach additional files and code sold items to different accounts and eventually publish created invoices to your integrated accounting software for your accountant to keep track of your profit & loss statement and balance sheet. These two are mandatory elements of your annual accounts that every business needs to submit by 30 June for the previous calendar year.
Please remember that invoicing functionality is available if the Sales module is activated for a company account you created on Envoice. Envoice does not replace accounting software. Eventually, you need an accountant to connect your Envoice account to the accounting software that integrates with Envoice.
Step-by-step Guides to Creating an Invoice in Envoice
These steps are available after the Envoice account for your company has a chart of accounts and VAT rates available for invoice generation. Usually, these standard items are synced using your accountant’s integrated accounting software, which has those available in default or custom settings.
1. Create an Invoice
Go to the Sales module. Click on the New Invoice button.
2. Select the client you’re invoicing
You can choose an existing client or add a new one by clicking “Add New”
3. Review invoice details
The fields are pre-populated based on the company’s Sales settings, but you can edit the details if needed. The payment method is determined by the methods allowed in your accounting software and can, therefore, be displayed in the accounting software’s default language, which can be Estonian.
4. Add the items you’re invoicing your client for
You can select an item from your saved items list or select general service/product and manually add a description.
To create a new line for items, click the “Add a new line” button.
Click the Delete (Recycle Bin) icon to delete an item line.
5. (Optional) Add additional notes
Notes are best for comments, shipping details, or any other information. They are unique to each invoice and will not be remembered for the next time.
6. (Optional) Attach any files to your invoice
Whenever you need to add an attachment to your invoice, you can do so in the invoice attachments section by uploading a file from the computer. The attachments will be attached to an email with the sales invoice itself.
7. Save and Send
Once the invoice looks the way you want it, you can either click on:
Save – if you still need to finish working on it. It will be saved as a draft.
Approve – The invoice will be locked against any modifications and can be sent to your client.
Click Send, select Email, and a preview will appear. Here, you can change or add more email addresses and personalize the email for your client.
Create Your Invoices Manually
If this is too complex and you don’t want to set up an accounting plan with software that integrates with Envoice to sync the chart of accounts and VAT rates, you can create your first invoice using tools like Microsoft Word, Canva, or other design platforms, which offer templates and customisable options to design a professional invoice. However, some details are mandatory for a correct invoice.
For example, displaying your VAT number is mandatory if your business is VAT-registered. Estonian VAT law § 37 also outlines the compulsory information each invoice must contain to be valid, applying to all Estonian entities, even those not yet VAT-registered. Required fields include the invoice serial number, date of issue, the issuer’s name and address (with VAT number if applicable), the buyer’s name and address (including their VAT number if registered), a description of the goods or services provided, and the quantity or extent of these goods or services. Additional references, such as reverse-charge or zero-rated VAT clauses, may be necessary for cross-border transactions to ensure compliance.
Here is a sample sales invoice in Word, which you can use as a sample.
In a Nutshell
In summary, you can design your sales invoice in a simple text editor or use Envoice to sync them automatically with your accountant’s software. Envoice simplifies invoicing by allowing you to create, send, and manage invoices digitally. Of course, there are many other free or cheap invoicing tools online, but checking if your accountant’s software can read the created invoices after exporting them is best. This is important to avoid manual coding of your sales invoices. Automatic sales invoices import or sync helps to save money on accounting.
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