Introduction

Some countries legally require the delivery of structured digital invoices for specific business models.

This document provides an overview of the capabilities available in the Intershop Commerce Platform. It is intended for project architects who want to understand the platform’s out-of-the-box capabilities and identify the next steps for their own project development.

Requirements may vary significantly from one country to another. Intershop does not provide legal advice. Each project is responsible for adapting its end-to-end processes to meet the applicable legal and business requirements.

References

• PWA: feat: add e-mail to address forms

• ICM: Reference - Basket REST API 1.7.1 and Reference - Customer REST API 1.6.3

• IOM Connector: Public Release Note - IOM Connector 9

Adaptations in the Intershop Commerce Platform

The Intershop Commerce Platform already supports invoice delivery, including delivery by e-mail. However, the individual applications required specific adaptations, which are described below.

Order Creation and Invoice Delivery Overview

This is a simplified diagram. There are other order exports from ICM, and not every project uses the IOM. The following chapters provide more detail.

PWA

The address form now allows users to enter an e-mail address in B2B shops. This allows buyers to provide a dedicated e-mail address that usually differs from their personal user/buyer e-mail address.

The optional e-mail field is rendered when the businessCustomerRegistration feature toggle is enabled or the customer is a business customer.

This applies to all address forms used during registration, in the My Account section, and in the checkout. If provided, the e-mail addresses are also rendered with all order and requisition details in My Account.

ICM

REST API

The invoice/shipping e-mail address is sent from the PWA to ICM with the Basket REST API 1.7.1 during checkout and the Customer REST API 1.6.3 during registration. The email field of the address element is used. This field existed before but was not used.

Database

If an e-mail address is provided with an address, it is stored with BASKETADDRESS (during checkout) or CUSTOMERADDRESS (during registration or in My Account).

During order creation, the e-mail field is copied to the STATICADDRESS table, which means that it is “frozen” with the order.

This behavior is unchanged from previous ICM versions. No database fields were added.

Back Office

The invoice and shipping e-mail addresses can now be seen in the back office, both at the address and the order. At the address, it is also editable.

Order Export

XML Order Export

• The invoice and shipping e-mail addresses are exported as part of their respective address objects.

• Empty values are not exported.

• This behavior did not change compared to previous ICM versions.

Order Submission Service

• The invoice and shipping e-mail addresses are exported as part of their respective address objects.

• The buyer’s e-mail address is exported as part of the user object.

• Empty values are not exported.

• This behavior did not change compared to previous ICM versions.

IOM Connector

• The invoice and shipping e-mail addresses are exported as part of their respective address objects.

Notification E-Mails

ICM sends various notification e-mails, both for requisitions and for order confirmations. Since there can be multiple different e-mail addresses within one order, it is important to know which address is used for each purpose.

The notifications have a lookup order, because depending on various parameters certain fields can be empty, so a fallback is required.

Before:

1. Invoice-to address e-mail

2. NotificationEMail custom attribute of order (and basket)

3. User profile e-mail

After:

1. NotificationEMail custom attribute of order (and basket)

2. Invoice-to address e-mail

3. User profile e-mail

E-Mail Templates

Requisition and order confirmation e-mail templates have been adapted:

• The invoice e-mail address is always displayed for the invoice address.

• The shipping e-mail address is only displayed for orders with digital delivery (e.g., gift certificates).

IOM

The IOM, which already sends invoices, now can send eInvoices in ZUGFeRD format as well. Other country-specific formats can be added in projects.

The logic that determines which e-mail address is used for invoice delivery was not adapted.

CEC

The CEC allows you to add addresses for a customer. The corresponding form was adapted as well and now contains the e-mail address field.