Hear it from the devs: How does fiscalization work?

Starting your own business is exciting! You have an idea and see an opportunity on the market. We’ve been able to prove over and over that running a powerbank sharing operation can be very fortuitous, however, we have also seen that starting a business comes with a very different set of laws and regulations depending on where in the world you’re located.

Fiscalization, maybe you’re familiar with it or maybe it’s the first time you’re seeing the term. In short, fiscalization is the process of reporting tax and your sales to the relevant authorities, in most cases some government instance in the country you’re operating.

Some things are more universal than others. Once we started our journey to partner with entrepreneurs all over the world, we quickly realized that fiscalization is one part we want to get working as quickly as possible. Most PSPs (Payment Service Providers) handle a big chunk of the work behind the actual transactions, but the fiscalization process is usually trickier and requires more work from our side. We are no strangers to this, but there are a few things we can do together to make sure the implementation is as smooth as possible.

1. Look up what instance takes care of reporting taxes in your country
   Find out what company or government instance handles these things. In some countries it’s handled by some instance of the government, in others it’s a private company doing it on behalf of the government. Every detail helps! Gather website links, names of contact people, email addresses, etc.
2. Start a conversation about demo environments and credentials
   Testing is a crucial part of integration with a new system. The best way for us as developers to do this is to do it in some kind of demo environment. This allows us to be able to “test our wings” before we start reporting actual sales on your behalf. In many cases, your tax agency will be able to provide credentials for developers to test out their systems. Having these ready at hand before you want to get started will speed up the process a lot!
3. Look over the technical specifications and try to get an understanding of them
   This step can be tricky, no one is expecting you to understand all the technical details behind what’s required, but like both above-mentioned points: the more information you can gather, the better! Can they provide you with example receipts? Can they tell you whether the developers will need a special certificate to make server calls? Are there any known pitfalls, or steps that other companies have found particularly difficult to make work?
   Gather anything you find out and dump it in a document!
4. Remain vigilant and oversee the process
   Our developers are used to working independently, but a lot of times it helps a lot to have someone in the country that can act as a bridge between us and the tax agency. Sometimes it can mean translating text, sometimes understanding concepts that might be unfamiliar to us, and other times it can be cultural things that are very specific to your country.
   We also appreciate it if we can easily contact you during the setup process, and we will naturally try to do the same!

Once the implementation is done, we usually never have to revisit it unless something changes on our side or their (the tax agency’s) side. Stay in touch with them to get the news well in advance if they’re about to change something so we can act quickly on it!

We have already integrated with a couple of agencies all over the world, and we’re looking forward to handling many more!

Contact us via our website, our app , or apply to launch in your market as well!