I am still processing everything that happened at Community Day 2026 in Belgrade (https://www.communityday2026.com).
Looking back, I think we managed to create exactly what we wanted: an international meeting where people working with fiscalization could openly exchange experience, discuss real problems and learn from each other without the usual pressure to sell something.
In fact, Community Day started before the official agenda. Many of our guests arrived in Belgrade the day before, so we had the opportunity to welcome them, spend some time together and show them a little of this beautiful city. That informal beginning was important because by the time the official event started, it already felt less like a conference and more like a group of people meeting again.
This year, participants came from Mexico, Germany, Colombia, Brazil, Austria, Italy, the UK and many other countries. We deliberately kept the event at around 100 participants and again tried to maintain a balanced mix of retailers and solution providers. I believe that this size is one of the reasons why Community Day feels so different. People do not disappear anonymously into a large conference hall. They actually meet, talk, ask questions and get to know each other.
The practical value of the talks was particularly important to me this year. For the country sessions, we introduced a new concept and divided each topic into a legal and a technical part. Our legal consultants explained the regulatory requirements and the reasoning behind them, while our business analysts showed what those requirements actually mean from a system and implementation perspective. For me, this combination worked extremely well because fiscalization is never only a legal topic and never only a technical one.
Another great element was our Rumours & News session. We went through a large number of short developments, signals and rumours from across Europe, including topics that may look small today but could become very important for retailers and solution providers tomorrow. Covering the whole of Europe in this format created a very different kind of discussion because people could immediately compare what is happening in different markets and add their own experience.
Our guest from Avalara also gave us a very inspiring perspective on the increasingly important connection between fiscal middleware and e-invoicing solutions. These two worlds are getting closer and closer, and I believe their integration will become an important part of the future architecture of international retail compliance.
One of the highlights for me was also something we had never presented in this form before: statistics from our Fiscal Portal. For the first time, we showed how much content has actually accumulated there over the years, including the number of news items and documents, but also how many subscribers are using the portal. We even shared some of the company names and showed how certain customers are using it across many different countries. Seeing those figures together gave a completely different perspective on how much compliance knowledge and daily usage has grown around the platform.
This year, we also introduced our own Community Day Companion app, which we developed especially for the event. It turned out to be much more than a nice additional feature. It became a real companion throughout the day and helped participants navigate the agenda, access information and, most importantly, book individual consultations.
We had nine consultants available on site, and every participant could use the app to book a 1:1 consultation with them. For me, this was one of the most valuable parts of the whole event. Instead of only listening to general presentations, participants could sit down with an expert and discuss exactly the problem they currently have in a particular country, implementation or project.
That is something you do not see very often at conferences.
The value becomes very concrete when somebody arrives with a real problem and leaves the room with a much clearer idea of how to solve it. This is exactly the kind of practical exchange we want Community Day to be about.
My personal highlight was still the panel discussion with Irina from Metro AG, Srijana from Tata Consulting Services and Milan from Fiscal Solutions, moderated by Kristina. The atmosphere was almost private, although we had a room full of people. The panel brought together the perspectives of Tier 1 retailers and POS software vendors, based on many years of experience and hundreds of real implementations around the world.
We then opened the discussion directly to the audience. Retailers and solution providers could ask their own questions, challenge the panelists and bring their own experiences into the conversation. At that moment it stopped feeling like a traditional conference panel and became a real discussion between people who understand the same problems from very different sides.
This international and balanced perspective is one of the things I value most about Community Day. We do not want the event to represent only one side of the industry. Retailers, software vendors, consultants and technology providers all see fiscalization from a slightly different angle, and bringing those perspectives together makes the discussion much more valuable.
Community Day also continues after the presentations end. In the evening, we moved to a traditional Belgrade restaurant with great food, two live bands, traditional tamburica music, plenty of laughter and, of course, some dancing.
Even the next day was not really the end. Some of our guests stayed in Belgrade, so we went together to the EuroLeague basketball game between Crvena Zvezda and Paris Basketball. It was another opportunity to spend time together outside the formal event and another reminder that a real community is built as much through these moments as through presentations and panels.
We have always believed that knowledge shared at Community Day should not disappear when the event is over. As usual, we will distribute the materials used during the sessions to the participants, and this year we are also planning to publish some of the recordings. I think this is important because many of the presentations and discussions have value long after the event itself.
The biggest thing I took away from Community Day 2026 is that the value of the event is not created by the agenda alone. It comes from the trust between people, the willingness to share experience honestly and the feeling that nobody needs to pretend they know everything.
There is no pressure to turn every conversation into a sales opportunity. There is no problem in saying that you do not know something. Instead, somebody else in the room may have already dealt with exactly the same problem and be willing to explain what worked and what did not.
That is how relationships are built, and that is how a real community develops.
It is also the reason why we want to keep Community Day limited in size. We had to reject a number of registrations this year, which I genuinely regret, but around 100 participants seems to be the right size for maintaining the atmosphere we want. Small enough that people actually meet each other, but large and international enough to bring many different experiences into the room.
We have already opened pre-registration for Community Day 2027. We do not yet know the exact date or all the details, but pre-registering will help us plan the next event and will give you priority once the official registration opens. It is completely non-binding.
If you would like to join us next year, you can pre-register here:
https://fiscal.community/community-day#register
And to everyone who joined us in Belgrade this year, whether as a participant, speaker, panelist, consultant, partner or part of the organization team: thank you.
You are the reason Community Day feels the way it does, and I am already looking forward to seeing many of you again next year.
