The electronic invoice cannot be generated
Symptom
On an issued invoice, you clicked Send to FE-AP or Send by EDI and the Invalid Operation window opened. The invoice was not sent.
Message
When you click Send to FE-AP, with a customer without an address:
“The electronic invoice of "FT D26/38" does not comply with the CIUS-PT specification and was not sent:
- [BR-CIUS-PT-21] The invoice's delivery address (the customer's or the delivery location's) has no street. Fill in the “Street” field on the customer or delivery contact. (BR-CIUS-PT-21)”
In the same window, BR-CIUS-PT-22 (town, “City” field) and BR-CIUS-PT-23 (postcode) follow.
When you click Send by EDI, with the same problem, the first sentence changes:
“The EDI invoice of "FT E26/1" does not comply with the CIUS-PT specification and was not sent:”
On a simplified invoice to a final consumer (FS POS26/1), the window adds to the address rules a line that does not say which field it is:
“The electronic invoice of "FS POS26/1 (Customer invoice from Loja de demonstração - [...])" does not comply with the CIUS-PT specification and was not sent:
- [DT-CIUS-PT-012] DT-CIUS-PT-012: the value does not follow the official format (DT-CIUS-PT-012).”
A customer whose NIF is saved without the PT prefix (for example, 599999993) is no longer refused: in the test, the invoice was accepted.
On an invoice without a means of payment:
“Nothing was sent to the FE-AP portal, because of these documents:
- "FT D26/37" has no payment method that maps to a code of the public-sector electronic invoice. This invoice is already issued and signed, so the payment method and the bank account can no longer be changed: issue a credit note (“Credit note” button on the invoice) and a new invoice with the payment details filled in.”
Verified causes
The electronic invoice has its own rules, which a normal invoice does not have. So an invoice that was issued correctly can still be refused at this step. The official rules appear with their code in square brackets. This table sums up the ones triggered on screen:
| What the message says | What is missing, in practice | Where to correct it |
|---|---|---|
BR-CIUS-PT-21, BR-CIUS-PT-22 and BR-CIUS-PT-23 | The street, town and postcode of the customer or of the delivery location | Customer record |
DT-CIUS-PT-012 | On the final consumer invoice, a value without the official format; the message does not say which | The final consumer invoice is not sent |
| “has no payment method” | The invoice has no Payment Method and no Recipient Bank | Before issuing, in the Other Info tab. On an issued invoice, credit note and new invoice |
“Line 2: “Quantity” is missing” (IBR-022) | A line has zero quantity | The electronic invoice refuses the line amounts |
If the document should not even be sent, see The electronic invoice does not apply to this document.
What to check
- Open the invoice's customer and check whether it has a street, town, postcode and NIF.
- Open the invoice's Other Info tab and check whether it has a Payment Method or a Recipient Bank.
- Check whether any invoice line has zero quantity.
- Who sends: the Send to FE-AP button appeared to the Certified accountant profile and the Administrator, and did not appear to the Accountant or the Billing profile.
How to fix it
- Missing address: fill in the street, town and postcode on the customer record and click Send to FE-AP again. The invoice does not need to be changed: in the test, the same invoice was accepted after the record was corrected.
- Final consumer: do not send this invoice to the FE-AP. This sending is for invoices to entities with a NIF.
- Missing means of payment: on an invoice not yet issued, fill in the Payment Method or the Recipient Bank, in the Other Info tab. In the test, an invoice with the Recipient Bank filled in was accepted without a payment method. On an invoice already issued, those two fields are read-only: as the message says, issue a credit note and a new invoice with the payment details.
- Another cause on an issued invoice: the invoice can no longer be changed, and the screen says “Document issued and signed: it can no longer be changed. To correct it, issue a credit note or cancel it giving the reason.” See How to issue a credit note.
On the Send by EDI path, once the address is corrected, the next refusal may be the missing GLN: “The INVOIC message INVOIC|FT E26/1 was not sent: the GLN of the company … is missing”. See How to connect EDI and Saphety.
Expected result
After correcting, with Send to FE-AP:
- the notice “FE-AP electronic invoice. SIMULATED: nothing was sent to the FE-AP and the State received nothing. Accepted: 1, rejected: 0, no answer: 0.” appears;
- the invoice shows the state Accepted (simulated);
- below the header appears “Simulated sending to the FE-AP (05/11/2026 19:13:24): nothing was sent and the State received nothing. The answer is made by the simulator. Simulator reference: MOCK-5FBC8F94557F.” and the FE-AP history link.
Sending to the FE-AP is simulated here: nothing left the computer. The screen says so in the notice, in the state and in the sentence. Do not treat the Accepted (simulated) state as a delivery to the State's portal.
When sending through Peppol in demo mode, the invoice says so explicitly, with the label Simulated: nothing was sent:
The steps for that sending are in How to send and receive invoices through the Peppol network.
When to contact support
If the message cites a BR-CIUS-PT rule that is not in the Verified causes table and you do not know which field to fill in, ask for support.
Information to send
- The invoice number.
- The button you clicked.
- The full text of the message, with the rule codes.