E-invoicing in construction: Chorus Pro experience is not enough

The construction sector has a head start on e-invoicing, and that head start is partly misleading. Since 2017, suppliers of public buyers have sent their invoices through Chorus Pro, an obligation extended in stages until 2020. Companies in the sector therefore know the principle. The new channel, that of accredited platforms, follows other standards and does not handle the same cases.

Since 1 September 2026, all VAT-registered companies must be able to receive electronic invoices, and large companies and mid-sized companies must already issue them. On 1 September 2027, the obligation to issue extends to SMEs and micro-enterprises. Failure to comply is penalised by €50 per invoice not transmitted, capped at €15,000 per year and per taxable person. For a construction group, the decisive question is nevertheless not the date. It is which flow belongs to which channel.

A multi-activity group does not invoice in the same way depending on its customer. Sales to a public buyer continue to go through Chorus Pro. Sales to a private VAT-registered customer use an accredited platform, in e-invoicing. Sales to individuals fall under e-reporting, that is, the periodic transmission of data. Each company in the group with its own SIREN number may, moreover, be subject to a different VAT regime, which multiplies the cases to handle.

Chorus Pro’s track record gives false assurance here. Knowing how to upload an invoice to the portal does not prepare a company to issue one from an accredited platform, which must itself be able to pass the flows intended for public buyers on to Chorus Pro.

Progress billing is the sector’s first singularity. In public contracts, each work statement is treated as a down-payment invoice and follows its own billing file on Chorus Pro, fed in turn by the contractor, the project manager and the client. In private contracts, the down payment falls under separate use cases of the AFNOR XP Z12-014 standard, and the final invoice must detail all the services. A single site can therefore follow two logics depending on the nature of its customer.

Works invoices intended for a public buyer are, moreover, not compatible with the accredited-platform channel. The project must keep access to the historical Chorus Pro channel, which a group may discover late if it did not anticipate it when choosing its platform.

Subcontracting and joint contracting add another layer. Between the contractor and its subcontractor, the channel is a classic one: two taxable persons, an electronic invoice, and the reverse-charge mention where it applies. Everything changes as soon as the final buyer and direct payment come into play. With a private buyer, the buyer is identified as the third-party payer of the subcontractor’s invoice. With a public buyer, the subcontractor files its payment request on Chorus Pro, and the contractor has fifteen days to accept or refuse it, failing which it is tacitly accepted. In private joint contracting, the lead contractor pre-validates the co-contractors’ invoices on the buyer’s behalf, then issues its own.

The prorata account, finally, appears neither as a use case of the standard nor as a dedicated channel in the documentation reviewed to date. It calls for handling defined case by case with the client.

An incorrect invoice could once be recycled on Chorus Pro. It is now rejected. The supplier must cancel its invoice in the accounts and issue a new one, while the public buyer’s payment period, set at thirty days, runs in principle from receipt of the payment request. A simple error in the reference of the purchase order, the contract or the department in charge of payment, all mentions required by the public procurement code, then becomes a cash issue.

Retention money illustrates the same tension. A use case exists in the standard, but its profiles do not allow a payment schedule that respects the guarantee periods to be structured. A text mention must be used, and two separate life cycles managed, one for invoicing, the other for the balance.

This data, commitment references, allocation to the site, description of the works, is not naturally accounting data. It sits in the estimating tool, the site software or the commercial management system, and rarely in a single repository. The project starts there.

Two outcomes are possible. The first is limited to connecting the group to an accredited platform: compliance is reached, the organisation stays the same. The second seizes the opportunity to align repositories, approval workflows and site monitoring. The first choice protects, the second transforms.

The most tangible gain lies in matching the invoice to the commitment. When the platform talks to the site software, each invoice received is routed to the right entity, the right site and the right approver, then matched to the order. Site margin can then be followed live, across initial budget, committed budget and remaining budget. Without this interface, e-invoicing only digitalises the entry of the invoice, and re-keying remains downstream.

This approach means involving from the start the general management, the finance function and the IT department, as well as the site managers, who approve invoices from the field and expect simple tools that work on a tablet or smartphone. It also means checking that a platform is genuinely accredited by the tax authority, and not merely compatible, since vendors of solutions for the construction sector may present themselves under the latter label.

For most SMEs in the sector, the countdown has begun, with the obligation to issue applying to them on 1 September 2027. Testing real use cases before the deadline allows corrections. Discovering them afterwards forces improvisation, on invoices that carry the group’s cash.