Electronic invoicing (CFDI), simple and fast

Electronic invoicing in Mexico is CFDI 4.0. Cretia’s Invoicing module lets you issue those digital tax receipts from the cloud — RFC checks, SAT catalogs, payment complements, cancellations, and XML/PDF — with stamping through a certified PAC, not by claiming Cretia is one.

A CFDI (Comprobante Fiscal Digital por Internet) is Mexico's official electronic invoice. Since 2014 it has been the fiscal receipt the SAT accepts to support income, deductions, and tax credits. The current version is CFDI 4.0: it requires the receiver's tax address, tax regime, and invoice use, among other fields.

Common CFDI types in day-to-day operations are income (sales), egress (credit notes), and payment (the electronic payment receipt that complements a credit invoice). Cretia is built around those flows: you capture the operation, we send the invoice data to a certified PAC that generates and stamps the XML, and you download XML and PDF. Cretia is not a PAC.

To stamp you need a current Digital Seal Certificate (CSD), not your e.firma private key. The e.firma is for SAT procedures (returns, SAT ID, tax mailbox). Cretia uses the CSD to seal invoices; you never upload the e.firma .key to issue a CFDI.

What CFDI 4.0 asks for before you stamp

Since version 4.0, Mexico's tax authority (the SAT) requires every CFDI to carry the receiver's tax ID (RFC), their legal name exactly as it reads on their tax status certificate, the postal code of their registered tax address, their tax regime, and the invoice-use code for that purchase. One character off in the name or the postal code is enough for the PAC to reject the stamp. Cretia stores that data once per customer in the CRM, so you are not retyping it on every sale or trusting someone to remember it correctly.

The invoice also has to state how it was paid, using the code PUE (paid in a single instalment) or PPD (paid in parts, or later). PUE applies when the payment lands the moment the invoice is issued, or any time up through the last calendar day of the month in which that invoice was issued — not the month after. Anything paid later than that requires PPD, and a PPD sale means you later owe a payment complement for every instalment you collect, tied back to the original invoice.

Cancelling, keeping records, and connecting invoicing

Cancelling a CFDI always requires a reason code from the SAT's own catalog: 01 when the invoice had errors and a replacement already exists, 02 for errors with no replacement, 03 when the transaction never happened, or 04 when it was part of a global invoice. Reason 01 requires the fiscal folio — the UUID — of the CFDI that replaces the one you're cancelling; without it, the cancellation does not go through. The document that carries fiscal weight is always the XML the PAC stamps with its digital seal and UUID; the PDF is only that XML's printed representation. See how CFDI cancellation works for the full process, and download both the XML and the PDF for every invoice in Cretia, stamped or cancelled.

Invoicing doesn't live in isolation inside Cretia. You can build a quote for a customer and, once they accept it, turn it directly into an invoice without re-entering the product or customer details. Once stamped, that invoice's income flows into the accounting module, along with its payment complements and cancellations, so your income records and your invoicing stay in one place.