After the Russian Federal law #54 (hereinafter — 54-FL) entered into force the trade operations are to be conducted in a different way. All the companies engaged in selling goods or services are obliged to use special cash equipment with fiscal storage unit and to be able to forward data on all the sales to the Fiscal Data Operator (FDO) and further on to the Federal Tax Service.

The federal state law #54 covers online shops as well, so AliExpress was faced with the task of bringing its business processes in compliance with the new Russian legislature and implementation of software products and their integration with the ERP-system used in the company’s head office.

First Bit came to the rescue

To solve the tasks AliExpress was faced with it decided to work with the International Department of First Bit Company.

While making his choice the Client considered the following factors:

• First Bit has large experience in the field of the realization of complicated projects in foreign companies.
• Ability to closely cooperate with the English-speaking team of AliExpress and completing the project meeting tight deadlines.
• Deep expertise in trade automation, knowing and understanding the Russian law № 54 with all its specifics.
• Solid integration experience.
  
  

In their turn, First Bit’s specialists were enthusiastic to take on such a complicated and ambitious project when 54-FL had just entered into force and its provisions were being constantly changed.

54-FL and foreign e-commerce business: what to do?

The specialists of First Bit carefully analyzed the tasks AliExpress was faced with and suggested to complete a pilot project first, where they will conduct integration of “1C: Retail” used in a company with AliExpress’ ERP-system.

The realization of this pilot project allowed First BIT to examine the structure of AliExpress’ ERP-system, to find out its technical specifics, to develop the most effective scheme of its integration with the necessary equipment and to build the architecture of the future solution.

By the end of the pilot a decision was made to integrate AliExpress with “ATOL Online” service that became the first product on the market in the “cash for rent” class.

After the pilot was completed the First BIT’s specialists started the main project, when they had to develop and realize the methodology for bringing the company’s operations in compliance with 54-FL.

The methodology to be developed included creation and putting into operation of 4 mechanisms:

1. Collecting data from the foreign ERP-system;
2. Processing it and entering it into “1C: Retail”;
3. Transferring information into “ATOL Online” service, controlling this process;
4. Forwarding data on the status of the exchanges back to the Chinese ERP-system.
   
   

This methodology was developed and adjusted within 3 months, and after that First BIT conducted an integration testing. In August, 2017 a new system was already launched into operational exploitation. The stabilization was finished in a month – in September, 2017.

Uniqueness

The uniqueness of this project is not only in the fact that the specialists of First BIT company had to become pioneers in the field of bringing the activities of a large foreign online-business in compliance with the federal state law № 54, but also in the constantly changing formats of fiscal documents, tight time limits, English-speaking only team of the Client, including the specialists who developed the integration on the side of the foreign ERP-system.

One also has to take into account the large amount of sales on AliExpress – in real time regime the system has to process large amounts of documents (tens of thousands every day with the maximum load of 8-13 documents per second).

The results

Now “1C: Retail”, integrated with the Chinese ERP-system, processes the whole flow of cheques related to sales on behalf of the Russian legal entity. Cash documents are forwarded to “ATOL Online”, where they are distributed to FDO and further on to the Federal Tax Service.

This allows AliExpress to comply with the current Russian trade legislation and conduct business legally on the territory of the country, providing Russian customers with a wide assortment of goods at favorable prices.

There are new projects planned for other business models of the company’s representative office in Russia.