Organizations should be aware that complying with Brazil’s Nota Fiscal legislation is much more complicated than just creating a few XML integration points. SAP Nota Fiscal solutions and services have to solve the 3 core problems with compliance – Localization, SPED and sending/receiving digital Nota Fiscals. Often, those in charge of the SAP Global Template for their company, which is a huge undertaking, don’t fully recognize the complexity of the process configuration inside of the ERP system. Here are the 3 key areas where you need to look for guidance:
- SAP ERP Localization for Brazil compliance – there are many OSS notes that you need to look at and install. If you are not on the most current version of SAP ECC 6.0, than I have seen companies that would need to install upwards of 200 notes to get their system compliant. It is critical to understand your local needs in Brazil, as well as align them with the upgrade policy and change management policy of the SAP global template. There is often miscommunicated and there are alternative solutions to major upgrades. The local teams can get the solutions they need without having a large impact on their global SAP rollout or template
- SPED Compliance - Under the Brazilian Federal Revenue Office’s administration, the objectives of SPED are to integrate the action of the tax authorities by sharing accounting and tax information, thus expediting the identification of tax offenses by crossing the tax returns submitted by taxpayers with their accounting records. This process once your system is localized requires the production of reports that are complicated and very specific. SPED Report examples include:SPED PIS/COFINS, EFD FISCAL SPED, SPED CONTÁBIL
- Nota Fiscal Eletronica - regulations covered not only physical goods (NF-e), but they also covered service invoices (NFS-e) and logistic invoices (CTe) making the implementation for global organizations even more complex. For SAP users, there operational NFe solutions need the following functionality:
- Support for all NFe document types (both inbound and outbound invoices, including Service Invoices and CTe)
- SAP Rapid Deployment Templates – that buffer the SAP ERP implementation from the local market needs
- A Regional solution that covers multiple countries: solutions that just cover one market leave organizations managing many vendors, they also need to remember that this leave major points of potential SAP configurations when the SAP upgrades or government upgrades are required
- Change Management should be included; many solutions on the market want to upcharge a company with heavy services every time the government changes
So as you look at solutions, take care to fully understand the issues created as you transition your business and SAP system into Brazil. Also, ensure you understand the new NF-e inbound process mandates and how they relate to SPED reporting starting in April 2012.