While all companies have been required to receive e-invoices since January 1, 2025, the requirement to be able to receive and process e-invoices is also approaching.
This applies as of January 1, 2027, to all companies with prior-year revenue of > 800,000 euros, and to all others as of January 1, 2028.
The only remaining exceptions apply to tax-exempt supplies and services, B2C invoices (end consumers), invoices for small amounts (<250 €), tickets, and services provided by small businesses.
In addition, a digital reporting system is scheduled to be introduced starting in 2028; this means that the tax office will receive a digital notification whenever an e-invoice is sent or received and will be able to verify it immediately.
When receiving e-invoices, we were able to easily provide our accounting clients with a suitable DATEV program for processing incoming invoices.
We are generally not involved in the creation and sending of invoices, and the client must ensure that their own invoicing software meets the requirements.
Since the transition can’t be completed in just a day and many service providers are likely to be fully booked toward the end of the year, we recommend that you start addressing this now and begin the transition right away.
As a reminder: Word, Excel, image, and PDF files are not e-invoices. These are simply machine-readable invoices that comply with the EN 16931 standard, such as X-Rechnung or ZUGFeRD 2.X. Ask your software provider whether their system complies with this standard and whether it has been set up for you.
To save time and money, there should be as few media breaks as possible; in other words, an e-invoice should be processed entirely electronically—from receipt through verification and approval, posting and payment, all the way to archiving and analysis—and should not, for example, be retyped.
Our software provider, DATEV, offers a variety of solutions in this area. Alternatively, you can check whether there is an interface between your invoicing program and our DATEV software. This can save you valuable time. Currently, 74 software vendors are planning to integrate with the DATEV e-invoicing platform.