TaxSpooler

What is it

According to Greek law, since 2003 several documents relevant to the Greek taxation system, such as an Invoice, have to be electronicaly signed by a specific method (hardware + software system). The signature can later be used to verify that document contents have remained intact during the time passed.

TaxSpooler is the software needed to operate several document electronic signature machines in the Greek market, like all MAT Electronics machines, Casio ones, etc.

The system, in a simplified description, applies the SHA-1 algorithm to text contents of document submitted and constructs an electronic signature that is then printed along with the document submitted, so that the document can later be verified against this signature and thus ensured that original contents have not been modified.

There are two ways of operation, according to Greek law:

  • Type A.
    An existing 3rd party application is not modified in any way. TaxSpooler is applied on top of this, gains control over the printing procedure, and acts accordingly, without interfering with the existing user application.
    TaxSpooler is responsible to extract pure text (needed for the electronic signature calculation) from the document supplied, using adequate sophisticated techniques for this reason.
  • Type B.
    End user application communicates with TaxSpooler, using some of several predefined ways, providing document contents, also in some of several predefined ways, and gets back document with the electronic signature embedded, ready to be printed, or gets back just the signature itself. In the later case, end user application is responsible to print the electronic signature along with the document.

    Use of type B operational way gives the most efficient and powerful results.

Operating systems supported

TaxSpooler consists of a separate server and client programs.

TaxSpooler server can be installed on all Windows 32bit NT-based platforms starting with Windows 2K and then, i.e. Windows 2K professional, Windows 2K server, Windows XP Home, Windows XP Pro., Windows 2003 Server, etc.

Versions till 2.4.1.1 can also be installed on lesser 32bit platforms, i.e. Windows 98.

Clients requesting a document to be signed can be of nearly any Operating System, providing it can communicate with Windows somehow. Best preferred communication method is TCP/IP. However, solutions have already been applied to systems that use only the serial port.

Among the tested Operating Systems, for client software, are: Digital Unix-64, IBM AS-400, IBM AIX, HP-UX, Linux (several variations), SCO Unix, SCO UnixWare.

Who is using TaxSpooler?

  • Some thousands of Greek companies.
  • TaxSpooler is the official solution of SAP Hellas.
  • TaxSpooler is the official solution of Oracle Hellas.
  • TaxSpooler is officially used by IBM Hellas, for both AS-400 and AIX systems.

I am a software developer. Which is the simplest way to communicate with TaxSpooler?

  • You make an ascii file containing the pure text representaion of the document you wish to get signed and then print. You should be able to open this file via a text editor, like Notepad (though a Unix file may not be seen very well in Notepad cause of the Unix NL instead of CR/NL used in DOS).
  • You submit your ascii file to TaxSpooler through a TCP/IP request.
    A DLL is provided for this reason for Windows.
    EXE files are also provided for several operating systems.
    C source code is also provided for other Operating Systems, for which a binary version is not available; you will need a C compiler for such a case.
  • The file might also contain Epson ESC/P sequences, as if it was ready to print on dot-matrix Epson or IBM Proprinter compatible printer.
  • You get back the file with the electronic signature embedded, ready to be printed, or the signature alone. Or the system can directly print the document on a conventional dot-matrix printer, or use any Windows compatible printer (local or network).

Learn more

To learn more about TaxSpooler, please visit our Greek pages.

Software is available to download and fully operable for a month. Software includes hardware emulator for the DM-100 device, so you can test the software, without presence of the DM-100 device. However software interface is in the Greek Language.

If you require further assistance or a specific translation of the Greek language to another language, please contact Metafuture (email to: ).