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The Compliance Clock is Ticking – Why 2026 Budget Planning Starts Now

Woman on tablet e-invoicing

With regulatory e-invoicing changes on the horizon in many countries – including France, Germany, Poland, and Mexico – finance, tax, and IT leaders face a ticking compliance clock. To ensure e-invoicing mandates are managed effectively and avoid costly penalties in 2026, businesses must prioritise transformation – with investment in the right tools and implementation processes allocated now. 
 

Accelerating Global Mandates and Business Requirements 

E-invoicing is no longer just a digital convenience – it’s increasingly a legal obligation. Governments worldwide are tightening tax controls with mandates designed to close VAT gaps and combat fraud. France, for example, will require all businesses to receive e-invoices, and all medium and large businesses to issue e-invoices by September 2026, with full coverage by September 2027. Belgium, Germany, Poland, Croatia, and Mexico are also rolling out mandates which will impact compliance and reporting. 

Mandates vary widely across jurisdictions, with different format requirements, submission portals, and complicated models, ranging from clearance to post-audit systems. Multinational organisations must navigate this complexity to comply with regulations everywhere they trade, and also keep on top of the inevitable changes as requirements are modified. 

Many organisations that rely on decentralised or manual processing of invoices will find it difficult to meet modern compliance demands. Legacy technology may not support data formats or integration requirements and may lack adequate insights into different country’s e-invoicing mandates. Meanwhile, manual workflows   increase the risk of errors and missed deadlines. 
 

A Strategic Roadmap for Compliance 

Recent Gartner® research highlights the importance of businesses having visibility into their current compliance capabilities – as well as the mandates that apply to them. To avoid reactive spending and ensure successful implementation, the report recommends building a strategic roadmap that includes: 

  1. Defining goals and capabilities 
    Outline your e-invoicing objectives and required capabilities. This could include a range of goals, such as consolidating systems and processes, sending and receiving 100% of invoices electronically, or increasing automation. 
     
  2. Assessing current gaps 
    Analyse your current capabilities against your objectives. This should reveal how your current systems, processes, and teams can be used to meet future requirements, and where your business is exposed to risks. 
     
  3. Prioritising next actions 
    Create a list of actions that need to be evaluated and prioritised to fill gaps in your current capabilities, such as e-invoicing coverage, integration, and scalability. Focus on high-volume countries and those with imminent mandate deadlines, and ensure your data and systems are able to support accurate reporting, as well as new processes. 
     
  4. Documenting and communicating the plan 
    Share a clear plan with all key stakeholders that includes the rationale, drivers, initiatives, and timing on your e-invoicing transformation project. This should ensure transparency and visibility at an early stage to ensure buy-in from all departments. This collaboration is critical for success. 
     

Budgeting for 2026 

Many companies formulate next year’s spending priorities around this time of the year, and another key element to consider when creating your e-invoicing roadmap is ensuring that appropriate funding is secured. To ensure that the right technology is in place to support a digital tax transformation and improve reporting, organisations must allocate funds for implementation and ongoing support. Delaying investment can create higher costs later, including retrofitting of the right tools, fines, interest, and reputational damage. 

By considering finances now, business leaders can align compliance efforts with broader digital transformation goals, boost operations, and ensure their invoicing systems are future-ready. 

Download your copy of the  Gartner ® research* and read more about creating a strategic e-invoicing roadmap

*Gartner, Develop a Global E-Invoicing Compliance Strategy, By Alexandre Oddos, Tamara Shipley, 7 July 2025 

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

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Chris Hall

Chris Hall

Senior Tax Officer, Chief Strategy Office

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Chris Hall is the Senior Tax Officer in the Chief Strategy Office at Vertex, with a focus is on global taxes and compliance. Prior to Vertex, Chris served as Managing Director for Global Indirect Tax Strategy at Ford Motor Company from 2017 and served in multiple leadership roles in North America and Europe since joining Ford in 2001. Between 1988 and 2001, Chris worked for General Electric Company, running GE’s shared services tax organisation in his last role there.

Chris has been responsible for all aspects of indirect tax including compliance, audits, controversy, planning, legislation and leading systems automation projects for centralised tax determination and reporting processes using Vertex and other platforms.

He holds a B.S. in Finance from Florida Tech and an MBA from University of South Florida, is a Certified Member of the Institute or Professionals in Taxation (IPT) and was a Certified Management Accountant and a member in good standing with the Institute of Management Accountants from 1993 to 2013. 

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