To send or receive an e-invoice via Peppol, a certified access point, a so-called Peppol Access Point, is required. Not only invoices, but also orders, delivery and payment advices, etc. can be exchanged electronically with public institutions and private companies nationally and internationally via our certified access point ecosio.
The Germany-wide obligation to issue e-invoices is currently limited to B2G invoices. Other countries are already much further ahead: Since April 2018, Italy has also made electronic invoices mandatory for B2B invoices. In the coalition agreement between the SPD, the Greens and the FDP from 2021, the nationwide B2B obligation is brought into play through a central reporting system for companies.
More about the current B2G deadlines under “National Commitment” and “International Commitment”.
The Cross Industry Invoice (CII) is a technical specification that can be used to create a message syntax that can be exchanged between trading partners worldwide.
All invoice data that is also required in an analog invoice is part of the e-invoice. It is transferred into a structured data set (XML). Classic invoice data includes sender, invoice number, positions, articles, amounts and taxes.
The electronic invoice is enshrined in EU Directive 2014/55/EU and nationally in the E-Government Act and the E-Invoicing Ordinance. According to the definition, the e-invoice must meet two conditions:
The format in which the e-invoice is sent is legally irrelevant. In addition to PDFs, image files (.jpg, .gif, .bmp) can also meet the requirements of an e-invoice, as long as they are issued and sent electronically. By sending e-invoices, numerous costs are saved in the company, such as personnel costs, storage costs (saving storage space for archiving) and low costs for postage, paper and printer ink, for example. In addition, the e-invoice ensures greater liquidity, as the faster delivery of the invoice also means faster payment.
According to Section 5 of the Federal E-Invoicing Ordinance, an e-invoice must contain at least the following information in addition to the invoice components required for VAT purposes (see Section 14 of the VAT Act):
The following e-invoice formats are common in the countries and can be implemented with our e-invoicing solution:
According to the German E-Invoicing Act, the following deadlines apply in this country for the introduction of e-invoicing with the XRechnung standard:
Here you can find out about the respective implementation deadlines of the federal states.
Hybrid invoices have been established through the ZUGFeRD format. They offer a visual representation of the invoices as a PDF in which the structured invoice data is embedded in the form of an XML file.
In the following countries, e-invoices are already (partially) mandatory or a law on e-invoicing has been introduced.
Africa: Morocco, South Africa
Asia: China, India, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Qatar, Philippines, South Korea, Turkey, Vietnam
Europe: Andorra, Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Finland, France, Great Britain, India, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Hungary, Cyprus
North America: Canada
South America: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay
Australia: Australia, New Zealand
E-invoices, including all receipts, must be kept for 10 years, just like invoices in analogue form.
The XRechnung format was developed by the Coordination Office for IT Standards (KoSIT).
The routing ID is part of every e-invoice and serves to uniquely identify the public invoice recipient/client. It can also be used for Peppol addressing.
The implementation deadline for receiving electronic invoices in the XRechnung standard is
Since November 27, 2020, the creation of e-invoices to public contracting authorities of the federal government and the state of Bremen has been mandatory. On January 1, 2022, the states of Baden-Württemberg, Hamburg and Saarland followed suit.
The deadlines for the other federal states from which e-invoicing will be mandatory can be found here: E-invoicing obligations
OZG-RE stands for Online Access Act-compliant invoice receipt platform. This is the platform for affiliated institutions of the indirect federal administration and cooperating federal states.
Peppol is a network for transmitting electronic documents. It functions like a communications network in which messages can be exchanged securely. Companies can submit B2B and B2G e-invoices internationally via access points such as ecosio.
In Germany, two invoice receipt platforms have been established for the submission of electronic invoices to authorities (B2G): The Federal Central Invoice Receipt Platform, or ZRE, as well as the Online Access Act-compliant invoice receipt platform, OZG-RE for short. The ZRE is used by the direct federal administration, constitutional bodies and cooperating federal states, the OZG-RE by affiliated institutions of the indirect federal administration and cooperating federal states. In the B2B sector, Peppol is the network most used for the exchange of electronic invoices.
If you use SAP Service Invoicing, you can send e-invoices with our solution. You can find more information about SAP Service Invoicing here.
For testing the submission of electronic invoices, the test environments of the ZRE (bund.de | Central Invoice Receipt Portal (ZRE)) and the OZG-RE (OZG-RE – Registration (xrechnung-bdr.de)). You are also welcome to book a live demo of our e-invoicing solution at any time, where we simulate the sending of an e-invoice from SAP.
UBL stands for Universal Business Language and is an XML standard that defines agreements on the digital data structure of the XML file.
The XRechnung is an XML-based data set that has established itself as the German standard for the content and technical composition of invoice information.
The ZUGFeRD format is another German e-invoice format, de facto identical to the French Factur-X: It allows visual representation as PDF/A-3. This PDF file contains the XRechnung as an attachment.