Brazil NF-e process overview

This article provides an overview of the process for setting up and submitting a Nota fiscal eletrônica (NF-e) to register the movement of items and services between two parties.

You can use a Nota fiscal eletrônica (NF-e) to register the movement of items and services between two parties. You can generate an NF-e from any of the following fiscal documents:

  • Sales orders
  • Purchase orders for non-taxpayer vendors
  • Project invoices
  • Tax fiscal documents
  • Free text invoices

Before you can generate an NF-e, you must complete the following tasks:

  • Set up web services, rejection codes, and schemas for a domain.
  • For each fiscal establishment, set up a certificate, an environment, an NF-e version, an authority, a template, schema validation, and a contingency mode for NF-e. Additionally, set up automatic printing of the Documento auxiliar da Nota fiscal eletrônica (DANFE), so that the DANFE is automatically printed after NF-e approval.
  • Set up web services that are related to a fiscal authority.
  • Set up a fiscal document type for an NF-e.

After you generate an NF-e, you can submit the digitally signed NF-e to the Secretaria da Fazenda (SEFAZ) in an XML message. The items can be delivered after the NF-e is electronically approved by SEFAZ. The NF-e process includes the following steps:

  1. The fiscal establishment posts a fiscal document by using a fiscal document type that is set up for fiscal document model 55 to generate an NF-e.
  2. The NF-e export or import process detects the posted fiscal document for the fiscal document model 55 and generates an XML message in the specified format. A separate XML message is generated for each NF-e. The XML message is transmitted to SEFAZ.
  3. SEFAZ processes the XML message and returns a protocol and status for each NF-e. The NF-e status and protocol are then assigned to the NF-e that is used in the NF-e export or import process. The status that is returned can be Approved, Denied, Discarded, Canceled, Rejected non fixable, or Rejected. This information is used to update the fiscal document status.

After the status of the NF-e is received from SEFAZ, you can perform the following tasks, depending on the status:

  • If the NF-e is approved, you can print the DANFE. Alternatively, if the Print DANFE when NF-e is approved option is selected on the NF-e federal FastTab of the Fiscal establishments page, the DANFE is printed automatically.
  • If the NF-e is denied, you must cancel the NF-e.
  • If the NF-e is rejected and can be fixed, you can correct the incorrect information, and then click Resend on the NF-e federal tab of the Fiscal document page to resend the NF-e to SEFAZ.
  • If the NF-e is rejected and can't be fixed, you must cancel the discarded NF-e that has discarded number. The NF-e export or import process detects the fiscal document that is posted and marked for discard, and then generates an XML message in the specified format for the discarded NF-e number. This XML message is then transmitted to SEFAZ, and the fiscal document status is set to Discarded.

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