It is expected to be announced by the Ministry of Finance within the day if an extension is finally granted for the interconnection of the 400,000 cash registers with the POS, as the professionals have requested.

According to ERT, the information indicates that the extension is possible as there are still technical issues that do not allow the timely completion of all the procedures.

In addition, the majority of businesses have not managed to implement, within the schedule, all the actions required for the implementation of the measure.

A decisive factor for the extension will be the exact number of businesses that have not yet been connected to the POS.

The Ministry of Finance, however, has declared that the interconnection project must be completed as it is one of the milestones for the disbursement of the September tranche from the Recovery Fund.

The question remains critical, which cases will be extended, whether the time of imposing sanctions and heavy fines will be postponed for those who do not comply in time or there will just be a grace period.

It is worth noting that for new POS installers, the margin of non-imposition of a fine of 1,500 euros has been postponed from March 1 to April 1, provided that the POS is ordered by February 29, while if they have applied for the supply but the installation is pending, then the margin of compliance can reach until March 31.

By today Thursday, 400,000 businesses should have completed the interconnection of cash registers with POS, something that seems improbable with the current image of the market.

Despite the fact that the rates have increased in recent days reaching at 4,000 to 5,000 connections daily, according to the president of the Athens Chamber of Commerce, Yiannis Hatzitheodosiou, only 15% of the obliged entities have completed the interconnection, i.e. approximately 60,000 companies.

The problem of delays lies not so much in the reluctance of those involved as in the complex project that is implemented for the first time in our country to such an extent and has as a result that there are tens of thousands of cases in which there is a long delay in the upgrade of the POS by their providers and technical problems arise in connection and networking of the POS from the suppliers of the cash registers who also carry out the final interconnection.

Given the technical issues, after GSEVEE and ESEE, the Central Union of Chambers of Greece was added to the list of organizations requesting time credit.
The criminal record

According to the legislative provision that was advanced in Parliament, the fines that will be imposed from March 1 are as follows:

In businesses and stores that do not proceed with the interfacing of cash registers with POS:

  • A fine of 10,000 euros for those who keep aplographic books
  • A fine of 20,000 euros for those who keep duplicate books

To POS providers:

A fine of 200,000 euros. However, if the same violation is committed within five years, the fine will reach 300,000

To importers and manufacturers of cash registers:

Revocation of the license for the cash register model and a fine of 10,000 euros.
To Electronic Invoicing Providers that interface with Enterprise Resource Planning (“ERP”):

Documents issued by the ERP program will not be considered legal and a fine of 10,000 euros will be imposed.
In the 35 new branches, not installing a POS carries a fine of 1,500 euros, but from April 1st.