“Cash” Electronic Invoices: Supreme Court Prioritizes Enforceability Over Limitations of the SII System

The inability to electronically claim an invoice cannot, by itself, deprive it of its enforceability.

Law No. 19,983 allows for the collection of unpaid invoices through enforcement proceedings, provided that the document complies with the requirements of Article 5. In practice, however, a seemingly minor detail—the “Payment Method” field on the electronic tax document—has become a recurring source of litigation.

The reason is simple: when issuing an electronic invoice, the Internal Revenue Service (SII) system requires it to be marked as “cash,” “credit,” or “no cost.” And when it is recorded as “cash,” the SII platform does not allow the recipient to record acceptance or dispute events regarding that document, because it assumes there is no outstanding balance.

This raises a question with very concrete consequences for those seeking payment: if the system does not allow a “cash” invoice to be disputed or accepted, could that technical limitation ultimately strip it of its enforceability? For the Supreme Court, the answer is no.

This was the ruling of the First Chamber of our highest court in its decision Case No. 37,463-2025, dated September 3, 2026. The Court granted the appeal on the merits, overturned the appellate court’s ruling, and issued a replacement judgment, rejecting the defense of lack of enforceability that had been raised.

To reach that conclusion, the court distinguishes between two concepts that are often confused: the agreed-upon payment method and the payment that was actually made.

The fact that an invoice states “Payment Method: Cash” simply means that the price was due immediately, not that it had already been paid. If the debtor wishes to argue that the obligation was extinguished because payment was made, they must prove it separately, just like any other defense.

The ruling also overturns a premise on which much of the system was based: that “cash” is equivalent to “paid.” It is this equivalence that the SII itself uses when defining the fields—“cash” when the document has been paid, “credit” when there is an outstanding balance—and from this followed the well-known consequences: the platform does not allow for claims or acceptance, the invoice cannot be assigned, and its enforceable collection was called into question. If “paid in full” merely indicates immediate enforceability, such an invoice may very well remain unpaid, and the platform’s block loses the rationale behind it.

This has practical implications for the debtor. Since the system does not allow the debtor to file a claim, the debtor’s defense is entirely shifted to the enforcement proceedings, where the debtor must raise a defense of payment and substantiate it with appropriate evidence, such as a transfer receipt or a payment letter. What the platform treated as settled is now contested like any other debt. Viewed in this light, the ruling does not change the law or the platform, but it does highlight an inconsistency: the system continues to treat as paid what, legally speaking, is not necessarily so.

From there, the Supreme Court takes it a step further and addresses the technical issue: the inability to electronically dispute a “cash” invoice with the SII is, at its core, an operational limitation of the platform and not a consequence foreseen by the law.

And for that very reason, that limitation cannot, on its own, cause the invoice to lose its enforceability. Since, in this case, the document was also not contested within the legal time limits, it was irrevocably accepted, and its collection was not time-barred.

This is a nuance worth bearing in mind. Months earlier, in its ruling Case No. 54,443-2024, dated February 9, 2026, the same First Chamber had upheld the dismissal of a preliminary proceeding concerning invoices marked “cash.”

But that case had an additional factor: there were discrepancies between the copies of the invoices attached to the case—which indicated a 30-day payment term—and what was actually recorded in the SII. It is worth keeping this in mind when designing a collection strategy, although it does not change the standard the Court has just established, now with greater elaboration.

Ultimately, the Supreme Court’s message is simple: a technology platform cannot, by its very design, generate legal consequences that the law did not contemplate. The limitations of the SII system are an IT issue, not a defense that the defendant can invoke to avoid payment.

This ruling provides legal certainty to creditors who use invoices as enforceable instruments, especially since the phrase “in cash” is commonly used and does not always accurately reflect whether payment was actually made.

For more information regarding this case, please contact our Civil Litigation and Arbitration Group: