E-Invoice Adoption in the Czech Republic (Forms, Exchange Channels, and Formats)

Abstract

The e-invoicing market is experiencing growth propelled by the global trend towards digitalization and automation. This paper aims to assess the status of e-invoice usage in the Czech Republic in the context of recorded usage trends, with a particular emphasis on whether the formats most widely used are suitable for automated processing. The research is based on both primary data obtained from 258 Czech companies and secondary data sourced from the Czech Statistical Office. Our data have shown that 63.19% of invoices are sent electronically compared to 36.81% in a hard copy. Among invoices exchanged electronically, 1.23% were downloaded from a supplier's system, 58.36% were exchanged via email in a non-structured format, 3.07% in a structured format, and finally, only 0.52% were sent through the official data box, endorsed by the Czech government. Surprisingly, a downward trend regarding machine-readable invoicing was identified in the available data. For data analysis, linear regression, confidence interval and descriptive statistics were used.