Some orders are only 9,000-10,000 VND
Talking to Lao Dong Newspaper, Ms. Huyen Nguyen - a business household who used to sell goods on many e-commerce platforms and at traditional markets - said that she has temporarily suspended operations even though there are still orders.
One of the obstacles that makes her consider continuing business is the requirement for electronic invoices for a large number of orders generated every day.
“Some of my household appliance orders are only 9,000-10,000 VND, even some units are worth 1,000 VND. A stamp pasted on a package is also about 500 VND, while using invoice software also incurs costs,” Ms. Huyen said.
According to her, for large-scale sellers on e-commerce platforms, generating 1,000-5,000 orders in a day is not uncommon. If each transaction corresponds to one invoice, the number of invoices to be processed can be up to thousands per day.
Ms. Huyen believes that sales systems and invoice solution providers currently have the ability to synthesize the number of applications and revenue generated during the day. Therefore, business households want to have technical solutions or more appropriate mechanisms for cases with many small value transactions.
The software can summarize how many invoices and how much revenue has been sold in a day. Sellers like us hope to have a more centralized or automated processing method, instead of having to process a very large amount of invoices for each transaction," she said.
Not only software costs, according to Ms. Huyen, sellers also have to consider human resources to process invoices, cancellation orders, goods returns and reconciliation while still having to perform normal operating stages such as packaging, delivery, and customer care.
Business households still have to make invoices when selling goods
From July 1, 2026, Decree 254/2026/ND-CP of the Government on electronic invoices and electronic documents takes effect. According to the principles of the decree, when selling goods and providing services, sellers who are eligible to use electronic invoices must make invoices to hand over to buyers, except for cases where it is stipulated that they are not required to use electronic invoices.
The time of invoice issuance for goods sales is the time of transfer of ownership or right to use goods to the buyer, regardless of whether money has been collected or not.
Regarding similar feedback from a business household about having to issue invoices for each order, while the exchange has stored transaction data and cash flow, sharing on the Government Electronic Information Portal, the Tax Department said that sellers who are subject to electronic invoices are still responsible for making invoices when selling goods, including selling through e-commerce platforms, and it does not depend on whether buyers request to get invoices or not.
According to the Tax Department, the data managed by the e-commerce platform and electronic invoices have different functions, purposes of use, and legal values, so they cannot be replaced. The platform's data mainly serves order management, payment, and reconciliation; while electronic invoices are documents of sales activities and serve accounting and tax obligations.
The tax authority also admitted that invoice issuance for sales activities through the exchange may cause difficulties, especially when there are many denied, exchanged or returned transactions. The solution proposed by the Tax Department is to increase the application of technology, use sales and electronic invoice management software capable of integrating with the exchange to automatically synchronize transactions, invoice issuance, process refunds, cancellations and revenue reconciliation.
Previously, at a workshop on tax policies and electronic invoices in e-commerce held in July 2026, leaders of the Tax Department also said that the tax industry will continue to increase connectivity, data sharing and gradually automate processes to reduce time and compliance costs for taxpayers.
However, from the reality of business, Ms. Huyen believes that the issue that needs to be further clarified is the ability to handle when a household generates thousands of transactions of very small value each day.
We are ready to fulfill tax and invoice obligations. What sellers need is a feasible way to actually sell goods on the floor. If there are a few thousand invoices a day, the system needs to be automatic enough so that business households do not have to increase too much cost and manpower just to process invoices," Ms. Huyen said.
