PAF

VAT concept of e-invoicing; an audit requirement on both issuer and recipient.

Definition

The Reliable Audit Trail is one of the three accepted methods for guaranteeing the authenticity, integrity and legibility of an invoice (alongside a qualified electronic signature and structured EDI). It relies on permanent business controls that reconcile the invoice against the purchase order, delivery note and payment. Both the issuer and the recipient must be able to document it.

Origin

Introduced by EU Directive 2010/45/EU amending the VAT Directive 2006/112/EC; transposed in France at Article 289 VII of the Code général des impôts and detailed in the BOFiP.

Example in context

Documented reconciliation: purchase order PO-4471 → delivery note BL-8830 → invoice FA-2026-0192 → bank settlement, each item timestamped and retained.

Related terms

• Audit trail — immutable operations log.
• EN 16931 — semantic model of the electronic invoice.