Supported and unsupported cases in Italy

This article covers only how OpenFiskal works in Italy.


In Italy OpenFiskal fiscalizes your store's sales automatically: every sale on a fiscalized register generates a commercial document. Below are the cases that fall outside this, the ones that only work under certain conditions, and what to do when you run into them.


Index



OpenFiskal does not work offline


OpenFiskal transmits every sale to the Agenzia delle Entrate the moment you make it. If the device is offline, or if the Agenzia's Fatture e Corrispettivi portal is unreachable, the transmission does not happen and the commercial document is not issued. This applies in Italy only: in Germany, Austria and Switzerland the offline limitation does not apply.


There is no way to catch up later. The rules do not allow you to transmit that sale afterwards as if it had been certified at the time: the only way to regularise it is to issue an electronic invoice.


You have twelve days from the date of the sale to issue the invoice. Until you do, that sale is not certified.


Here is what to do when it happens.


  1. Give the customer a temporary paper document noting that the portal was unavailable, for example “Portale fiscale non disponibile al momento dell'emissione” (tax portal unavailable at the time of issue).
  2. Write down the Shopify order number. You will need it to retrieve the date, time, total and VAT of the sale when you prepare the invoice.
  3. Ask the customer for their first name, last name and codice fiscale. If you cannot collect them at the counter, take at least an email address or phone number so you can get back to them and complete the details before the deadline.
  4. Issue the electronic invoice within twelve days of the date of the sale.


Without the customer's codice fiscale you cannot issue the invoice. It is the hardest detail to recover afterwards, so ask for it straight away.


The electronic invoice replaces the missed transmission and regularises the sale. How it should be recorded depends on the regime you operate under: if you are unsure, talk to your accountant.


Returns only work on sales fiscalized through OpenFiskal


To issue a return commercial document, OpenFiskal has to be able to trace the original sale. That is only possible if the sale went through OpenFiskal and was transmitted to the Agenzia delle Entrate by us. This applies in Italy only: in Germany, Austria and Switzerland this limitation does not apply.


Three situations fall outside this.


  • Returns of sales made before OpenFiskal. The order is in Shopify, but it was certified by your old Registratore Telematico (RT), the physical fiscal device.
  • Exchanges of sales made before OpenFiskal. The return falls under the case above and, since both parts belong to the same operation, OpenFiskal does not issue the sale either.
  • Unverified returns. These are returns with no linked order. It happens often to merchants coming from another system who could not import their order history.


In every case the return works normally in Shopify: what is missing is the commercial document, which has to be issued manually from the Agenzia delle Entrate portal. A plain return needs one document, an exchange or an unverified return needs two.


Guide: Italy: how to manage returns and exchanges when the original order wasn't through OpenFiskal


OpenFiskal does not issue invoices


OpenFiskal issues commercial documents (scontrini), not invoices. If a customer asks you for an invoice, you have to issue it outside of OpenFiskal.


You can do that by hand from the system you already use, or automate it: the Shopify App Store has several apps that generate the electronic invoice and send it to the Sistema di Interscambio (SdI) starting from the Shopify order. If you run an ERP, a direct integration is worth looking at too. E-invoicing apps on the Shopify App Store


Whichever route you take, there are two things to know about how it fits with OpenFiskal.


Invoicing after the receipt


If the receipt has already been issued, the invoice has to be linked to the commercial document that certified the sale. OpenFiskal generates a commercial document number for every sale, in the format DCWxxxxxxxx, which you will find as a metafield on the Shopify order.


Put that number in the “AltriDatiGestionali” field of the electronic invoice: it is the reference that links the two documents. Your accountant will use it to make sure the amount is not counted twice when separating the invoice from the daily sales totals.


Invoice before the receipt


OpenFiskal cannot be switched off for a single sale. Every sale recorded on a fiscalized register generates a commercial document (scontrino).


If you often sell to customers who only want an invoice, the answer is a dedicated register: a second Shopify POS device, a phone for example, left unfiscalized and used only for these sales. The interface is the same one your staff already know, the order shows up in Shopify reports and inventory stays in sync, but OpenFiskal creates no commercial document.


An unfiscalized register transmits nothing to the Agenzia delle Entrate. Use it only for sales where you genuinely issue the invoice.


On supported devices you can take payments with Tap to Pay. If you want to use a Wisepad or Shopify Terminal reader, you will need a dedicated one: each reader pairs with a single device.


Guide: How to fiscalize registers and online sales (AdE - Italy)


Online orders with foreign VAT are not fiscalized


The channel OpenFiskal uses to transmit commercial documents to the Agenzia delle Entrate accepts Italian VAT rates only: 22%, 10%, 5% and 4%. An order with a foreign rate is rejected and shows up among the errors. This concerns Italian fiscalization only.


This happens on orders shipped outside Italy, when the checkout applies the destination country's rate instead of the Italian one: 19% for Germany or 23% for Poland, for example. It is not a VAT department set up incorrectly, the data already reaches us that way from the checkout.


With Shopify Tax this usually starts once your sales to consumers in other EU countries pass the annual threshold of 10,000 euro. From that point Shopify applies the customer's country rate at checkout. You can find the explanation in Shopify's documentation on EU VAT thresholds.


These orders cannot be transmitted manually either: the transmission would carry an Italian rate, and the data reaching the Agenzia would be wrong.


Italian orders continue to be fiscalized normally. The error only affects the ones with foreign VAT.


How those orders should be handled depends on the regime you operate under, for example whether you are registered for OSS. That is a judgment for your accountant: talk to them as soon as you see the first error. If you would rather not see these orders among the errors, write to us and we will exclude them from fiscalization.


Epson FP 81II and FP 90III fiscal printers do not work with OpenFiskal


Shopify POS supports these printers through a native integration, which issues commercial documents through the physical Registratore Telematico. That is an alternative route to OpenFiskal, not a complement to it.


If you use OpenFiskal, that printer cannot print your receipts, not even through OpenFiskal's printing integration. You need one of the supported receipt printers.


Guide: Italy: Printing your OpenFiskal receipt - printing methods and compatible printers


Without a receipt printer the cash drawer has to be opened by hand


Opening the cash drawer automatically goes through the printer. The drawer plugs physically into the printer, the printer connects to Shopify POS, and at the end of a sale it is Shopify POS that sends the pulse that releases it.


If you do not have a receipt printer connected, that chain does not exist. A4 printers have no cash drawer port: even with one connected to the device, the drawer has to be opened by hand. This is not down to OpenFiskal, it is how Shopify POS printing works.


For a small shop this may not matter. If you have strict rules about who can open the drawer and when, take it into account before you choose your printing setup.


Gift receipts require a supported printer


A gift receipt is the copy without prices that you hand over with a present. In Shopify POS it prints through the app's native function, which only works when the device is connected to a supported printer. This is not down to OpenFiskal either.


A4 printing does not support it. If you print in A4, or if you use no printer at all, you cannot hand over a printed gift receipt.


The fiscal receipt itself is unaffected: it continues to be transmitted to the Agenzia delle Entrate and stays available to the customer digitally, by QR code or email.


Guide: Italy: Printing your OpenFiskal receipt - printing methods and compatible printers


If you run into one of these cases and you are not sure how to proceed, write to us at hello@openfiskal.com.

Updated on: 09/09/2026

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