- In Chile every receipt is a DTE (Documento Tributario Electrónico), digitally signed and sent to the SII.
- Your shop issues a boleta to individuals and an invoice to businesses. They're different documents, with different numbering and different folio consumption.
- You need two things before issuing: a digital certificate in the legal representative's name and CAF folios authorized by the SII for each document type.
- Folios run out. Running dry on a busy Saturday morning is the classic problem any decent software should help you avoid by warning you ahead of time.
- The electronic delivery guide matters more at a shop than it seems: moving a vehicle or parts between branches requires it.
Chile has had electronic invoicing fully in place for years, so the question isn't whether you have to issue DTE, but how much manual work it's costing you. And at a shop three things always get stuck: choosing the right document, not running out of folios, and not entering the same repair twice.
This guide is about that. It doesn't replace your accountant for your specific case, but it does give you the exact questions to ask a software provider before contracting them.
What a DTE is, and which ones a shop uses
A DTE is a tax document in electronic format, signed with a digital certificate and sent to the SII, which also has to be deliverable to the customer. Each type carries a numeric code, and the ones you'll see at a shop are basically these:
| Document | When your shop issues it |
|---|---|
| Electronic boleta | Sale to an end consumer: the individual who brings in their car. Day-to-day volume. |
| Electronic invoice | Sale to a business with a giro: fleets, insurers, another shop. Lets them use VAT as tax credit. |
| Credit note | Voiding or reducing an already-issued document. Happens at a shop more than you'd like. |
| Debit note | Increasing the amount of an issued document. |
| Delivery guide | Moving goods: parts between branches, or a vehicle to a third party. |
The boleta/invoice distinction is what most organizes a shop's operations, because it changes based on the customer, not the job. The same repair, at the same price, goes on a boleta if an individual brings the car in and on an invoice if a business with a giro does. Your software has to make that call based on the customer's record. If it depends on whoever's at the counter remembering, someday they won't.
What you need before issuing your first one
Becoming an electronic issuer isn't instant. The pieces you need:
- Active inicio de actividades with the corresponding giro.
- Digital certificate issued by an accredited entity, in the name of the legal representative or the natural person. It's what signs every document. It expires: write it down, because the day it does, you stop issuing.
- Registering as an issuer with the SII for the documents you're going to use, which for your own software means going through the SII's certification process.
- CAF folios authorized for each document type.
If you use already-certified third-party software, much of this gets simpler: the provider already put their system through SII certification, leaving you with just the digital certificate and the folios. That's exactly the question worth asking: "is your system already certified with the SII, or do I have to certify it myself?"
CAF folios: the problem nobody sees coming
This is specific to Chile and deserves its own section, because it's where the most shops get their operations cut short.
To issue DTE you need folios: numbering ranges the SII authorizes through a CAF file (Código de Autorización de Folios). You request, say, a thousand boleta folios; as you issue, they get used up. Once they run out, you can't issue any more until you request another CAF.
The important detail: folios are per document type. Having spare invoice folios doesn't help if you've run out of boleta folios. And a shop uses up boletas much faster than invoices.
Issuing isn't enough: you have to deliver
A point that's often overlooked: the obligation doesn't end when the document is sent to the SII. The customer has to receive it, whether printed or through digital means depending on how your business operates.
For a shop this gets solved well or badly. Badly is always printing and having half of them left on the counter. Well is the system sending the boleta or invoice by email or WhatsApp when the order closes, along with the detail of what was done to the vehicle. The second option, besides being compliant, is one of the things a shop customer appreciates most: knowing exactly what was done and what each thing cost.
The delivery guide, more common than you'd think
Many shops associate it with transport companies and don't think about it. But if you move parts between branches, if you send a part to a third party for machining, or if the vehicle gets transferred, there's a movement of goods, and that has its own document.
If your shop has more than one location or regularly works with third parties, ask specifically whether the software issues an electronic delivery guide. It's one of the features most taken for granted and least checked before signing.
What to demand from your shop program
- Is it certified with the SII? Get the provider to say so in writing, with the detail of which DTE types it covers.
- Does it decide between boleta and invoice on its own? Based on the customer's record, not on the judgment of whoever's serving them.
- Does it warn you when folios are running low? And even better: per document type separately?
- Does it issue credit and debit notes referenced to the original document?
- Does it issue electronic delivery guides? Essential if you have more than one branch.
- Does it send the document to the customer by email or WhatsApp, or does it only print it?
- Does it warn you about the digital certificate's expiration? The day it expires without warning, the shop stops.
- Does the DTE come out of the work order? If you have to re-enter parts and labor on another screen, it isn't saving you the work.
The DTE is the end of the journey
Everything above gets you invoicing by the book, which is good and mandatory. But it's the last step, and it's not where a shop loses money. It's lost earlier: in the quote that was sent and nobody followed up on, in the customer who wasn't told the car was ready, in the maintenance that was due in six months that nobody remembered.
If you're switching systems, make the change cover the whole journey, not just the tax document. The migration costs the same and the result isn't comparable. In shop software in Latin America we look at it from a regional perspective.
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