e-HDM fiscal receipts for online sales in Armenia

Taking the money is only half of a sale in Armenia. The other half is the fiscal receipt: the tax service expects the sale to be registered through an electronic cash register, and an online sale is not exempt because it happened on a website.

An e-HDM is that electronic cash register in software form, registered with the State Revenue Committee. Once yours is connected to Paynet, a fiscal receipt is issued for your online payments without anyone doing anything by hand, and the verification QR code is stored so you can show it again later.

This post walks through what the setup involves, what happens at the tax service and what happens in Paynet, and the three ways a receipt can be issued once you are running.

What Paynet does and what you do

The split is worth stating up front, because it removes most of the anxiety about the process.

Paynet generates all the keys and certificate files for you. There is no extra software to install, no keytool command to run, no key file to keep safe on your laptop. The private key is generated inside Paynet, stored encrypted, and never leaves it.

You file one application in the SRC e-filing system. That is the only part that happens outside Paynet, and it takes roughly ten minutes.

Everything else, the checking, the keystore assembly and the activation, is done for you from the dashboard.

The six steps

The e-HDM setup in Paynet is a wizard with six steps. Here is what each one is for.

Step 1: select domains

Choose which of your websites this e-HDM issues receipts for automatically. One e-HDM belongs to one business, and one business can serve several domains.

This step is optional. If you have no verified domains, or you collect payments elsewhere and only want to issue receipts yourself, skip it and continue. You can link domains later. Note that automatic printing for every successful payment does need a linked domain, so if that is what you want, do this step.

Step 2: the Paynet server IP

The SRC application asks for the IP address of the server that connects to the tax service. Because your payments are fiscalised by Paynet, that server is a Paynet server, and Paynet shows you the exact address to copy.

Note it down. You will type it into the application in step 4.

Step 3: generate the certificate request

Enter your TIN, the eight digit number on your tax registration certificate. If you have already completed business verification in Paynet, it is filled in from there.

Press Generate CSR. Paynet creates the keypair and a .csr file, which you download. That file is what proves to the tax service which key your receipts will be signed with.

If you ever regenerate the CSR, the previous one and any certificate issued for it stop working, so only do that if you are starting the registration over.

Step 4: file the application with the SRC

This is the part that happens at the tax service, not in Paynet.

1. Sign in to the SRC e-filing system.
2. Open the Applications section and choose form 101, "Application for HDM registration", code u6.
3. Choose the electronic HDM type.
4. In section 6, "Electronic HDM data", attach the .csr file from step 3 and enter the Paynet server IP from step 2.
5. Submit the application.

Then mark it as submitted in Paynet, so the dashboard knows what state you are in. Applications are usually approved in one to three business days. Paynet emails you a reminder after two days and again after seven, in case the approval arrived and you have not come back yet.

Step 5: upload the certificate

Once a tax officer approves the application, open the HDM list in the e-filing system. Download your certificate, a .crt file, using the download icon, and note the registration number (CRN) shown in the list.

Upload the .crt to Paynet together with your registration number and your tax regime. Paynet checks the certificate against the key it generated in step 3 and builds the keystore for you.

The tax regime matters. The options are VAT payer, non-VAT, turnover tax and micro-enterprise. A wrong regime produces legally incorrect receipts, so if you are unsure, it is on your tax registration certificate, or ask your accountant.

Step 6: check the connection and activate

Press Check connection first. If it succeeds, press Activate. Activation switches your e-HDM to active at the tax service and configures department 1 with your tax regime. After that Paynet can issue fiscal receipts for your payments.

If you generated your own keys with keytool rather than letting Paynet do it, there is an advanced path: convert the keystore to PKCS#12 and upload the .p12 file with its password instead.

Three ways a receipt gets issued

Once your e-HDM is active, there are three ways a receipt happens.

Automatic. Turn on the setting to print a receipt for every successful payment, and every completed payment on a linked domain produces a fiscal receipt with no further action. This is the mode most online shops want. It needs at least one linked domain.

Manual. Open Fiscal receipts in the dashboard, press New receipt, enter the items you sold with quantity and price, choose whether the customer paid by card or cash, and print. This covers sales that did not go through Paynet at all: a bank transfer, cash over the counter, a payment taken some other way. Business verification is required before issuing standalone receipts.

From the API. When you create a payment through the Paynet API you can send the sold items with it, and the receipt is built from those lines rather than from a single lump sum. If you want your receipts to show real product names instead of an order total, this is how. The API reference has the field details.

However the receipt is issued, its verification QR code is stored and can be shown again from the dashboard. For API payments, the webhook that reports the final status also carries the receipt id and the QR URL, so your own system can show the customer their receipt without a second call.

Returns

A refund needs its own fiscal document. In the receipts list, choose Return receipt on the original sale. That prints a return receipt and reverses the fiscal receipt at the tax service.

Do this whenever you refund a payment that was fiscalised. Refunding the money without the return receipt leaves the sale registered at the SRC as though it still happened.

When a receipt fails

Receipts can fail, usually because the tax service could not be reached or something about the certificate is wrong. Failed receipts are visible in the dashboard with the reason, and you can retry a single one or retry all failed ones at once.

The dashboard also raises an alert when receipts have failed, because a failed receipt means a customer is missing a tax document, which is a problem you want to hear about the same day rather than at the end of the month.

The common causes are readable from the error message: an expired certificate, which you fix by uploading a new one; a certificate the system cannot read, which you fix by uploading it again; a timeout at the tax service, which usually clears in a few minutes; department 1 not configured, which means pressing Activate again; and an e-HDM that was never activated in the first place.

What it costs

Receipts issued for a payment that went through Paynet are free. You are already paying 20 AMD for the payment itself, and the receipt attached to it costs nothing extra.

Standalone receipts, the ones for sales that did not pass through Paynet, are 3 AMD each. Every new account starts with 500 free receipts, and receipts you buy never expire. Full detail is on the pricing page.

An e-HDM does not require a shop

It is worth knowing that this works on its own. You can connect an e-HDM and use Paynet purely to issue fiscal receipts, with no domain linked and no payments taken through the platform. A domain is only needed if you want receipts issued automatically for payments processed by Paynet.

That makes it a reasonable option for a business whose selling happens elsewhere but which still needs a working electronic cash register.

What to do next

1. Complete business verification in Paynet if you have not, because standalone receipts and activation depend on it.
2. Open e-HDM in the dashboard and walk through steps 1 to 3. Have your TIN ready and download the .csr file.
3. File form 101, code u6, in the SRC e-filing system with the .csr attached and the Paynet server IP entered, then mark it submitted in Paynet.
4. When the approval lands, download the .crt and the CRN from the HDM list, upload them with your tax regime, check the connection and activate.
5. Turn on automatic receipts if your payments run through Paynet, and issue one manual receipt to see the QR code and confirm the tax regime looks right on it.

If you have not connected a store yet, the plugins page covers the ready made integrations that feed payments into this flow.

References to the State Revenue Committee and to any provider or platform names are for identification only, and those names belong to their owners. Paynet is an independent payment gateway.