Automation · Collections and receivables
Issue an electronic invoice, track it at the SRI and record the payment
An AI agent builds the invoice from real Contifico prices, files it with the SRI and tracks the document until it is authorized, with its RIDE and its XML.
How do I issue an electronic invoice in Contifico and know the SRI really authorized it?
A person asks the Met for the invoice from the Meteor desk, and the Met runs the whole path against Contifico: it finds the customer by tax ID or national ID, builds the line items with the prices and the VAT the catalog carries, computes the totals (Contifico does not compute them) and issues the invoice flagged as electronic, which is what makes Contifico sign it and file it with the SRI. Then it checks the document until it shows as authorized, hands back the link to the RIDE and the XML, and records the payment against that document. Worth knowing before you read the procedure: this does not run over WhatsApp. The connector refuses invoicing and payment recording when the request comes from a channel, because a document already authorized by the SRI is not deleted, it is corrected with a credit note.
Where it applies: Ecuador. The SRI is the Ecuadorian tax authority, and the electronic invoice this recipe issues is the Ecuadorian one: its RIDE, its XML and its establishment and issuing point numbering.
What starts it
When someone asks for it
A person starts it. The salesperson, or whoever runs administration, asks for the invoice from the desk, with the task button or by writing to the Met. None of this is scheduled and none of it fires on its own, which is the point: a document that reaches the SRI with nobody looking gets corrected with a credit note, not with a delete.
A manual task: someone on the team runs it with a button, or asks the Met for it in chat.
Who runs it
Billing Met
Finance and operations team
Not the Met that answers WhatsApp: an internal Met operated from the desk, with Contifico's fiscal tools enabled. The split is not a matter of style or configuration, it lives in the connector code, which checks whether the request came from a channel before it lets anything be issued.
What you need connected
- Contífico Collect and manage
7 steps · 8 tools
The procedure, step by step
Each step shows the tool that runs. They belong to the real connector: if one of them stopped existing, this page would not build.
- 1
Find the customer by tax ID or national ID
The search accepts legal name, national ID, tax ID, email or mobile, and returns the person's identifier along with their latest documents. That identifier is exactly what the invoice asks for. Looking at the history in the same step is not decoration: it is what keeps you from issuing the same invoice twice when somebody asks again. And if the person is not there, you do not have to create them separately, because issuing does register a new customer and infers from the tax ID whether they are an individual or a company.
- 2
Build the line items from the catalog prices and VAT
The catalog listing returns, in a single call, the name, the code, the four price lists, the VAT of each product and the stock. That is where the identifier and the price of every line come from, never the model. It matters more here than on a quote: the VAT written here is the one that travels to the SRI, and a zero rate is not the same as a product not subject to VAT, which goes to a different field.
- 3
Issue the invoice and file it with the SRI
The invoice is created flagged as electronic, and that is what makes Contifico sign it and send it. Three things get decided in this step. The document number comes from your authorized numbering, with its establishment and its issuing point, because the connector does not invent it. The totals are computed by the connector, since Contifico does not compute them, and if they disagree with the total already confirmed with the customer the tool aborts and creates nothing. And the authorization number is not written in: Contifico generates it when the SRI authorizes the document.
- 4
Track the document until the SRI authorizes it
The query distinguishes four moments: unsigned, signed, filed with the SRI and authorized. Only the last one means the SRI accepted it, so saying "it is invoiced" at any of the three earlier moments is getting ahead of the facts. Once the document is authorized, the answer carries the link to the RIDE and to the XML, which is exactly what you resend to anyone claiming the email never arrived.
- 5
Say which account the customer can pay into
The listing returns the bank accounts configured, with their bank and their status. It is a step of its own because a bank transfer payment and a cheque payment both require it: without the account identifier, the payment cannot be recorded against anything. For cash and for card this step is skipped.
- 6
Record the payment against the invoice
The payment goes against the document already issued, in cash, cheque, credit card or bank transfer, and it accepts partial payments and not only the full amount. With a cheque, the number is required. It comes after issuing on purpose: the invoice can reach the SRI with an open balance and be paid days later, which is how most receivables actually work.
- 7
Close the case with what was applied and what is left
Two queries close the path. The payments query lists what was already applied to that document and the agreed payment terms, so it answers how much is left. The documents query filters the customer's invoices by date range and returns, for each one, its total, its balance and its status with the SRI. It is the same query that tells you the following week what went uncollected.
Before you start
What you need ready
The Met solves none of these for you. If one is missing, the automation stops there.
-
A Contifico API key
You request it from Contifico support and its availability depends on the plan you have contracted. It travels as is in the authorization header, with no prefix, and is stored encrypted per workspace.
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The POS API token
It comes from the same request as the API key. Contifico requires it to create documents and people, so without it you can query the catalog, the receivables and the SRI, but you cannot invoice. This recipe needs it.
-
Your authorized numbering and the signature loaded in Contifico
The sequence with its establishment and its issuing point is data the connector receives, not something it reserves. And the one who signs the document and files it with the SRI is Contifico, using the signature you already have loaded there. Meteor flags the document as electronic and from that point the process belongs to Contifico.
The limits
What this automation does NOT solve
Better said here than discovered halfway through the rollout.
-
It does not run over WhatsApp, Instagram or Messenger. Issuing the invoice and recording the payment are two of the five tools the connector refuses when the request comes from a channel, and there is no setting that changes it. This recipe is operated from the desk.
-
It does not issue credit notes and it does not void documents. If the invoice went out wrong and the SRI already authorized it, the correction happens in Contifico with accounting judgment involved. The connector can list and read the credit note, not create it.
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It does not trust totals handed to it. Contifico does not compute them, so the connector does, and if they disagree with the total already communicated to the customer, issuing stops without creating the document.
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It does not generate the document number. Contifico requires the sequence with its establishment and issuing point format, and that comes from your own authorized numbering. The connector receives it, it does not reserve it or guess it.
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It does not chase the SRI and it does not explain a rejection. The query says where the document stands and nothing else. If it has been sitting at "filed with the SRI" for hours, the recipe reports that as is instead of claiming it is authorized.
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It does not close the books, produce financial statements or file tax returns. It is an operating window into Contifico for issuing and collecting a document, not a replacement for your accountant.
FAQ
Questions about this automation
Because the connector refuses it, and that is deliberate. An electronic document authorized by the SRI is not undone by deleting it: it is corrected with a credit note, which is a new document with accounting consequences. Leaving that decision inside a chat is the kind of mistake you find out about at filing time.
Quote, check the catalog and the stock by warehouse, identify the customer by their mobile number, review receivables and answer where the document stands with the SRI. Eleven of the sixteen tools work over a channel. The five that do not are invoicing, recording payments, moving inventory, listing bank accounts and reading the company profile.
You do not. Unlike the quote, issuing does register a new customer and infers from the tax ID whether they are an individual or a company. The recipe still searches first, because finding the record that already exists is what keeps the same customer from landing twice in the people master.
Yes. Issuing accepts the payments in the same call, with their method and their amount, so a cash sale goes out in a single step. The separate payment step is there for the other case, which is the common one: the invoice goes out today with an open balance and the money arrives later, sometimes in instalments.
The query distinguishes four moments and none of the four is "rejected": a document the SRI did not accept simply never reaches authorized. So the honest answer from the Met is where it stopped, not why. The reason comes from the SRI and is handled in Contifico.
No. Contifico is Ecuador and its document goes to the SRI. For Colombia the site has Alegra and Siigo recipes, but they solve a different task (quoting and collecting), and issuing the electronic document before the DIAN is neither the same thing nor covered by those two.
Neither one. Contifico remains where the books, the catalog and the document signature live. What changes is the typing step: the document is built from real data and reaches the SRI without somebody keying it in by hand.
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