Lucca successfully launched receipt-free expense statements with Namirial, enabling employees to photograph restaurant and taxi receipts on their smartphones and helping companies digitise, secure and archive expense documents in compliance with French regulations.
Lucca, a publisher of SaaS software providing automation of administrative and HR processes, is a leader in its market, with more than 1,500 customers and 217,000 end users.
The company was looking to simplify the management of expense statements, a process affected by outdated, lost and illegible receipts, as well as the administrative burden of entering, handling and storing large volumes of paper documents.
With the launch of the “evidentiary value digitalisation” feature on Cleemy, Lucca revisited the legal changes that made it possible to digitise expense receipts while preserving their legal value.
1,500+
customers
217k
end users
10
years of legal preservation for invoices in France
The Challenge
Lucca was addressing a process that could be particularly thankless for both employees and accountants: entering and managing expense statements based on paper receipts.
Until the relevant regulatory change, scanned invoices had no legal value, meaning that companies had to keep paper versions. Article A 102 B2 of the French Book of Fiscal Procedures changed this situation by establishing rules for the digitalisation of invoices, including expense statements, and requiring an electronic signature.
Solution
To offer this service, Lucca concluded a partnership with Namirial, an eIDAS-qualified Trust Service Provider and French pure player in electronic signatures, timestamping and seals.
The solution provided:
- Receipt digitalisation: Declarants can photograph their restaurant and taxi receipts on their smartphones and then throw away the paper receipts.
- Secure evidentiary value: The client company authorises Lucca to collect and archive receipts in accordance with the legislation. Thanks to qualified seal and timestamping services, Namirial makes the digitally archived receipts enforceable before the French tax authorities or the French social security collection agency (URSSAF) by attaching a digital seal in Lucca’s name.
- Simple, compliant electronic signature: The solution reconciles legal compliance and simplicity of use, ensuring reliable identification of signatories and document integrity through qualified timestamping and the application of a universal date.
Results
The implementation of the evidentiary value digitalisation feature enabled Lucca to offer a receipt-free expense statement process while meeting the legal and technical requirements for digital archiving:
- Receipt-free expense statements: Employees can photograph receipts on their smartphones instead of keeping and submitting paper copies.
- Reduced administrative burden: Accountants no longer have to handle or store mountains of receipts, while outdated, lost and illegible documents are eliminated from the process.
- Digital preservation with evidentiary value: Expense receipts can be stored digitally under conditions guaranteeing durability and access for 10 years, the legal preservation period for invoices in France.
“We’re very happy and proud to support Lucca in their business activity digitalising expenses statements. Indeed, this change to regulations now allows companies to store receipts digitally, as long as this complies with the eIDAS regulation’s requirements. As a qualified European Trusted Third Party, Namirial positively meets these requirements and contributes to the improvement of administrative management and the productivity of companies.”
— Christian Dayaux, Sales Director, Namirial
Impact and Recommendations
The transformation implemented by Lucca demonstrates how regulatory change and trusted digital technology can simplify expense statement management. By combining Cleemy with Namirial services, companies can move from paper receipts to digital archives while preserving the legal value of the documents.
The legal texts require companies wishing to digitise receipts, or authorise a third party to do so, to reproduce them identically through a photograph or scan, identify the author and channel used, save the documents in PDF format, attach an electronic seal and store the documents under conditions guaranteeing durability and access.
In practice, this requires multiple servers, backup copies, controlled access to machines, audits, documented procedures and more. In the event of an investigation by the French administration, the company can present the digital archives stored within Cleemy to the controller, with the digital documents having exactly the same value as the original documents.
Disclaimer: this success story was originally produced by a former group company. It is now presented on the Namirial website for archival and informational purposes. The results, figures, branding, and product references reflect the customer experience at the time of original publication and may no longer represent current offerings or outcomes.