Poland’s experience with fiscal cash registers and fiscal printers is very long. Poland is country with approximately 2,5 million cash registers. For 27 years, all these devices were based on fiscal memory. The cash register must be registered with the tax administration and comply with detailed specifications. Vendors and suppliers obliged to use a cash registers Shops in Poland are issuing receipts in the  paper form with graphical image of fiscal logo, which identifies fiscal receipt. According to  polish tax law, appropriate fiscal receipt has to be printed out  and  provide it to the customer.

Cash registers has to be certificated before being admitted to the market. Both structural solutions and software in a fiscal registers  are examined by the public authority - Central Office of Measures.

They are regulated by VAT Act (Goods and Services Tax Act) of 11 March 2004 and the regulations: the Regulation of the Minister of Finance of 14 March 2013 on cash registers, the Regulation of the Minister of Development and Finance of 28 December 2018 on the exemptions from the record-keeping obligation through the use of cash register and the Regulation of the Minister of Entrepreneurship and Technology of 28 May 2018 on the criteria and technical conditions to be met by cash registers.

The VAT registered taxable persons who sell goods or services to natural persons not conducting an economic activity and to flat-rate farmers are obliged to keep records of their turnover and amounts of output tax VAT using cash registers.

Minister of Finance releases, by a regulation, for a specified period of time, certain groups of taxable persons and certain acts, from the obligation, and set forth the conditions for benefitting from the relief, having regard to public interest, in particular the situation of the State budget.

At present there is a strict obligation to register the turnover using the cash registers applies, among others, supplies of liquid gas, motor fuels, tobacco and alcohol products, radio, television and telecommunications equipment; passenger and taxi services, medical, legal, catering and hairdressing services (details in the Regulation of the Minister of Development and Finance of 28 December 2018 on exemptions from the obligation to keep records using the cash registers). Other taxable persons selling to natural persons not carrying out economic activity and flat-rate farmers may benefit from an exemption related to the turnover of the taxpayer (currently amounting to PLN 20 000 per year) or the exemption for the supply of goods or services listed in the annex to the abovementioned- Regulation, where specific types of services are indicated, e.g. vending machines.

Current situation

According to Act of March 15, 2019 amending the Act on tax on goods and services and the Act - Measures Law, the provisions constituting the Central Repository of Cash Registers (CRK) entered into force on May 1, 2019. This solution makes possible among others, registration of the cash register service technicians, online fiscalisation (registration) in the Central Base of Cash Registers  (CEKR2), online transfer of retail sales to the central repository of cash registers, as well as the analysis of these data using dedicated reports.

Until the 22 November 2021 in CEKR2, 704,000 online cash registers, including 4000 virtual cash registers, have already been registered.

On the 1 June, 2020, the regulation on cash registers in the form of software (virtual) entered into force. The new solution allows the use of software cash registers to keep sales records, which is to encourage entrepreneurs to exit the shadow economy through easy availability and lowering the total cost of owning cash registers. Virtual cash registers are to be an alternative to the cash registers used so far by taxpayers. Virtual cash registers may be used by taxpayers providing passenger transport services, as well as catering and hotel services. These cash registers, like on-line cash registers, have the function of transmitting data to the ICT system via the telecommunications network.

Communication between the cash register

The communication between the cash register and the repository is encrypted. Data transfer from the cash register takes place according to the schedule to the public cloud. The transferred data is encrypted.

The cash register operator transmits data in accordance with the schedule, which is imposed on the cash register during fiscalisation. The cash register is also periodically polls the cash repository, if there are no new commands for it, for example:

• Changes to the transmission schedule (the operator can change the frequency of cash register communication from the repository.
• Turn QR code printing on or off.
• Download detailed data from the cash register (eg. report from the event log).

The CEKR system allows you to define new commands for cash registers. Commands sent to the cash register will be encrypted.

Fiscalisation process

Fiscalisation is the process by which the cash register connects to the it system for registration. The cash register is registered in the Central Register of Cash Registers system. In this system cash registers are identified by the factory number and the unique individual number. The list of unique numbers is prepared by the Ministry of Finance and only numbers from this list can be installed in the cash register's memory. During fiscalisation, the cash register is assigned a registration number.

Data analysis

Data generated by the cash register will be transferred from the cloud to the Repository.

The collected data is used for analytical and control purposes. The control system for the transmission of data on sales records kept by cash registers is one of the key tools to combat the so-called shadow economy, which contributes to the strengthening of fair competition among entrepreneurs. Thanks to the analysis of data sent by online and virtual cash registers and the greater effectiveness of selecting entities for inspection, it will be possible to reduce the number of inspections at taxpayers. Controls will only be carried out where necessary.