New invoice format in Switzerland replaces inpayment slips

Red and orange inpayment slip

Inpayment slips have a very long tradition in Switzerland and are still very commonly used today to settle debts. The difference between the two slips is a reference number. This number can only be found on the orange inpayment slip and can be entered manually or electronically. The inpayment slip with a reference number is issued by the invoicing party and sent to a debtor as a printout together with the invoice or as a file.

The red inpayment slip without a reference number, on the other hand, enables the payment or transfer of any amount to the own or a third party’s account and was comparable to the German transfer or inpayment slip. Instead of a reference number, any text can be entered here as the purpose of payment.

The new invoice with QR code is quite similar to the previous formats and consists of a part that summarizes the payment information and a receipt. The so-called Swiss QR code is located in the middle of the payment part and contains all the information that is also listed on the invoice in text form. By September 30th, 2022 the Swiss Postfinance plans to completely remove the current inpayment slips from the market and replace them with QR invoices, as these offer long-term usability through their broadened data capacity, especially in interchange with neighbouring European countries.

Create and send QR invoices easily in Scope

With Scope, Swiss customers can already create and manage invoices with QR codes. Scope transfers the payment data including the QR code straight onto the issued invoices. Electronic invoices in UBL E-Invoice format can then be sent automatically via e-mail. In addition, Scope enables different branches to send electronic invoices to each other. The outbound invoice of one branch is automatically generated as an inbound invoice of the other branch. As soon as invoices are exchanged with external systems, the data is forwarded in UBL e-Invoice format.