I do understand and share your disappointment. Note that from a legal point of view (at least as far as Germany is concerned), businesses (in this case the seller, Framework) are not legally required to issue an invoice to consumers and Framework stated that they do not support selling to businesses yet (see links above).
Furthermore (again I only know this for sure for Germany), in order for a business (such as your employer) to be able to correctly record the expenses for the Framework laptop purchase as operating expenditure, the minimum requirement by law is that they
- can prove the payment, e.g. via the bank/credit card statement, and
- can credibly demonstrate that they have received the machine.
An invoice is (while, of course, commonly used) not absolutely necessary by law.
A proper invoice (with all the requirements such as address of seller and buyer, date of performance, invoice number etc.) is only necessary for getting a VAT refund (“Vorsteuerabzug”). This will most likely not be possible in your cases.
Our tax consultants had no complaints with the documents we provided, but of course we’re a small business without an own accounting team and thus are quite flexible.
Please do check out the links above, especially the one about enterprise sales.
And btw this does not mean that I endorse how Framework is handling this. To the contrary, I find it strange that something simple such as issuing an invoice still seems to be a problem after being in business for quite a few months now. I’m just sharing what I learned from my experience in buying this laptop from overseas and from a number of years of managing a small business, with a large portion of that time having managed accounting and taxes myself.
Edit: Long story short - a possible solution to your problem could be if your company would be willing to waive the VAT refund (“Vorsteuerabzug”) and use the “Eigenbeleg” option.
