Is the SAT’s free App FEL enough for you?

The SAT gives you an invoicing tool that costs nothing: the free FEL application, available in the Agencia Virtual and in the App FEL. Plenty of people assume it is a cut-down version and that "real" invoicing means paying a certifier. It does not. For a good share of businesses in Guatemala, the SAT’s tool does everything they need. This article sets out what it actually does, with the SAT’s documentation in hand, and the specific moments where it stops being enough.

What the SAT’s free tool is

The Factura Electrónica en Línea regime was created by Acuerdo de Directorio 13-2018 and gives you two ways to issue and certify: free issuing through the Agencia Virtual and the App FEL, where the SAT itself is the certifier, or authorised certifiers, at a cost. There are 18 certifiers on the SAT’s official list today. The free application lives at portal.sat.gob.gt, under Servicios Tributarios > Factura Electrónica en Línea (FEL); the App FEL is the SAT’s mobile app, also free, on the App Store, Play Store and App Gallery.

If you enable yourself as an issuer using these applications you do not have to accredit the SAT as your certifier — that step is automatic. The electronic signature certificate has no cost either. The SAT describes its own application as suitable for professionals, technical services, small taxpayers "or any company whose volume of issued invoices allows it", and describes paid certifiers as suited to companies with high invoice volumes. So the SAT sets no number. It sets a practical condition: the volume you can handle while typing every invoice by hand.

What it does

• It issues the DTE types that match your tax regime. The FEL regime defines 20 of them — from the standard invoice and the small-taxpayer invoice to credit and debit notes, donation receipts and IVA exemption certificates — and the system displays the ones your regime allows.
• It handles credit and debit notes. In the App FEL, a valid document in your issued-DTE list offers Anular, Aplicar Nota de Crédito and Aplicar Nota de Débito.
• It voids documents, within the filing window for the monthly IVA return, and lets you request the reversal of a void if you got it wrong.
• It works with several branches. You pick the establishment when issuing, and only the ones active in your RTU appear; the App FEL lets you set a default and filter your documents by establishment.
• It lets someone else invoice for you. From the Agencia Virtual you delegate permissions to a collaborator with a registered NIT, in four roles: Consulta móvil, Operador móvil, Operador-FEL and Consulta-FEL.
• It does bulk issuing. You download an Excel template from the Agencia Virtual, fill it in and upload it, for five document types: FACT, FPEQ, FAPE, FACA and FAAE.
• It invoices by voice from the App FEL, available to small taxpayers.
• It prints in receipt-ticket format, with your logo and extra footer text, as well as on letter paper.
• It generates and files suggested and pre-filled zero-value returns from the App FEL: form SAT-2046 for small taxpayers, plus SAT-2241, SAT-2290 and SAT-2280 as applicable.
• It issues in 27 currencies, flags exports, notifies you by email and push whenever a DTE is issued to you or voided, and in the Agencia Virtual lets you issue up to 5 days back within the current month.

To enable yourself you need access to the Agencia Virtual, up-to-date RTU details, at least one active establishment, registration for IVA (or ICT in the primary and livestock regimes, where applicable) and a located fiscal address. And one detail worth knowing from the start: a collaborator you delegate permissions to issues and voids using the account holder’s signature and associated password — yours.

It’s enough if…

• You issue few invoices a day and typing each one by hand does not bother you.
• You sell services, or products that change often and repeat rarely.
• You work alone, or with one person you can delegate permissions to.
• You do not need stock control: no storeroom, or a notebook that works fine.
• Knowing what you sold is enough, because you know your costs by heart.
• You have one branch, or two that run independently.
• You do not need the invoice to come out of another system: a till, an online shop, a booking calendar.

If you recognised yourself in that list, the SAT’s tool is enough. Close the tab and get on with your day — paying to invoice would be paying for nothing.

It stops being enough when…

You open a second branch and want to compare

Invoicing from two establishments works: you pick the establishment when issuing and you can filter documents by establishment. What the SAT’s tool cannot tell you is which branch is making money and which is losing it, because it knows neither your costs nor your stock. You see documents per branch. You do not see results per branch.

You hire someone who also invoices

Delegated permissions solve access, not control. The collaborator issues with the account holder’s signature and associated password — yours — so there is no individual user with their own credentials, no per-person cash-up, and no report telling you who sold what. The moment money passes through more hands than your own, that starts to matter.

Users, shifts and commission per person

You need the sale to move your inventory

The SAT is explicit about its own application here: product and service descriptions are entered manually. There is no saved product catalogue, no saved prices, no stock — every line of every invoice is typed again. At five invoices a day that is a minute. At forty it is your afternoon, and it is where pricing mistakes come from.

Inventory: stock that drops with every sale

You want to know what you earned, not what you sold

The DTE query gives you the value of your sales for the month. That is the figure the SAT needs and it delivers it well. But your profit is sales minus cost, and the SAT never knew what the goods cost you. If you are making decisions about pricing, purchasing, or which product to stop selling, that number is not there and cannot be.

Reports: margin, profit and loss, and commissions

You want to invoice from where you already sell

The FEL regime’s technical documentation — the web services, the XSD schemas, the test cases — is addressed to certifiers and to issuers with their own or contracted systems that transmit their DTEs to an accredited certifier. The documented routes for the free application are the web form, the App FEL and the Excel bulk upload. If you want your point of sale, your online shop or your booking calendar to issue invoices on their own, that route runs through a certifier.

The point of sale that issues the invoice as you charge

How to decide in two minutes

Count how many invoices you issue on your busiest day and multiply by how long one takes you in the app. If the result seems reasonable, stay with the SAT’s tool. If it makes you wince, or if you recognised yourself in any of the five moments above, what you need is not another way to invoice: it is a system that already knows what you sell, at what price and at what cost, and that issues the invoice as a consequence of the sale rather than as a separate errand.

Cuadra is one of those options: a point of sale with FEL built in for Guatemala, where the sale moves inventory, each employee signs in as themselves, stock and reports are per branch, and the invoice is certified as you take payment. The Pro plan is Q249.00 a month and includes 250 DTEs a month, then Q0.75 per document; Premium is Q500.00 a month, includes 500 DTEs and then Q0.50 per document. There are 14 days to try it at no charge — and there are other options on the market and 18 authorised certifiers, so compare before you decide. If reading this convinced you that the SAT’s tool serves you, that is a correct answer too.

FEL invoicing certified with the SAT, straight from the sale

Frequently asked questions

• What does invoicing with the SAT’s tool cost? Nothing. The SAT states that issuing DTEs in its systems has no cost if the taxpayer uses the Agencia Virtual web application or the App FEL, and the electronic signature certificate you get when you are enabled has no cost either.
• How many invoices can I issue with the free application? The SAT describes it as suitable for professionals, technical services, small taxpayers "or any company whose volume of issued invoices allows it". The limit is practical: every description is typed by hand.
• Can I issue credit and debit notes with the App FEL? Yes. From your issued-DTE list, a valid document offers Anular, Aplicar Nota de Crédito and Aplicar Nota de Débito; both are DTE types in the FEL regime.
• Does it work if I have more than one branch? For invoicing, yes: you pick the establishment when issuing, only the ones active in your RTU appear, and you can filter your documents by establishment. What it does not give you is inventory or results per branch.
• Can my employee invoice from their own phone? Yes. From the Agencia Virtual you delegate permissions to a collaborator with a registered NIT, using the Operador móvil role to issue and void from the App FEL, or Consulta móvil for lookup only. Bear in mind the signature and associated password they use are the account holder’s.
• Can I connect the SAT’s tool to my point of sale? The documented routes for the free application are the web form, the App FEL and the Excel bulk upload. The regime’s web-service documentation is addressed to certifiers and to issuers with their own or contracted systems that transmit to an accredited certifier — so having another system issue your invoices runs through one.