State to postpone launch of Central Register of Invoices? – Electronic database of unpaid bills to prevent accumulation of debts

The owner of a private company delivering medical equipment to a hospital, to use an example, will no longer be able to charge for the goods delivered if the bill is not entered in the recently founded Central Register of Invoices. Not only that – if the invoice is not in this electronic database of unpaid bills, founded within the Treasury Administration, the said owner might pay a fine ranging from 100,000 to two million dinars.

These are the key features of the amendments to the Law on Deadlines for Settlement of Financial Liabilities in Commercial Transactions, adopted in December 2017. Business entities will be registered at the Treasury Administration, and state institutions have recently sent notifications of the new manner of payment to their suppliers from the private sector.

Officially, this electronic database of invoices should be launched on March 1. Unofficially, the beginning of the implementation of this new service will be postponed by a month, as not all technical requirements for launching the new service have yet been met, Politika reports.

Employees in the public sector who make a payment based on an unregistered invoice also stand to pay a fine. This fine ranges from 5,000 to 150,000 dinars.

The provisions apply to all entities doing business with the state in any capacity, and the intention of the legislators was to finally put this aspect of the public sector`s operations in order. The status of each bill will be followed through the register, which will prevent situations in which the state is a generator of insolvency, as has been the case before. More precisely, the public sector will no longer be able to accumulate debts towards to private sector. According to the said Law, which came into effect on April 1, 2013, the state must settle all its financial liabilities within 40 days, whereas the deadline period for the private sector is 60 days.

As the Ministry of Finance explains, the founding of the Central Register of Invoices will contribute to a more efficient settlement of liabilities within the deadlines defined by law, a reduction in late payments and an improvement of planning and management of public funds. The main reason for the adoption of these regulations is to improve the system of tracking the invoices issued, as well as to achieve a better control of settlement of financial liabilities.

All interested business entities that want to register may do so electronically as well, at the website of the Treasury Administration.

Whereas the deadline for the registration is not stated anywhere, the law clearly defines that, after the invoice is registered, the creditor must send it to the debtor within three days.

As has been the case so far, the supervision will be carried out by the budget inspection of the Ministry of Finance, which will be getting the data on unsettled liabilities of public companies from the information system of the Treasury Administration, Politika reports.

Two phases

Whether the launch of the Central Register of Invoices will be postponed will be known with certainty in a few days, as March is very close.

After Politika published the said article, Tanjug reported the statement of the Ministry of Economy which says that “all business entities all doing business with the state in any capacity will have to send their invoices to the Treasury Administration beginning with March 1, as they won’t be able to collect their claims otherwise”.

As the Ministry of Finance told Tanjug, in the first phase, the Law on Amendments to the Law on Deadlines for Settlement of Financial Liabilities in Commercial Transactions envisages the obligation of registering invoices and other bills in commercial transactions between the business entities and public sector subjects making payments through accounts registered at the Treasury Administration.

– The second phase of the registration of invoices pertains to debtors, other public sector subjects making payments through bank accounts – the Ministry of Finance points out.

Ministarstvo finansija Republike Srbije

Uprava za trezor Republike Srbije

Central Register of Invoices

Law on Deadlines for Settlement of Financial Liabilities in Commercial Transactions

register of unpaid bills

budget inspection

invoices

bills

public sector

private sector

business entities