The Public Revenue Office held a workshop on the e-Invoicing system for the banking sector. Around 50 representatives of banks attended, the Macedonian Banking Association organised it, and the topic was how the system works and how an electronic invoice is created in practice.

It is one in a series of preparations ahead of wider rollout. So far the tax office has run workshops with freight forwarders, municipalities, public enterprises and companies. The banks are now up, and the logic is clear - they are directly tied to electronic and cashless payments, so without them the system will not work.

The tax office says that getting acquainted with the new processes in good time creates a basis for easier application in practice, and that in the period ahead they will continue with information, practical support and testing.

All of that is accurate and necessary. Digitalising invoicing is a measure that makes sense - less paper, faster collection, harder to hide turnover.

What is missing from the announcements is the specifics: from what date it becomes mandatory, for which categories of taxpayers, what happens to a company with no technical means of connecting, and how much connecting costs a small business. A workshop with fifty bankers is a good start, but banks have IT departments anyway. The question is what the same training will look like for a craftsman with one employee in Kičevo, and whether it is planned at all. Digitalisation succeeds or fails at the smallest taxpayer, not the largest.