Invoicing in Practice

A correct invoice is more than an amount and a bank account. § 14(4) of the German VAT Act (UStG) specifies what an invoice must contain: the full name and address of both parties, a tax number or VAT ID, the issue date, a sequential invoice number, the quantity and type of goods or services, the date of supply, the net amount broken down by tax rate, and the tax rate and tax amount or a note on the exemption. If a detail is missing, the recipient can lose the right to deduct input VAT.

On top of that come the special cases that show up every day: the small business scheme under § 19 UStG with its turnover thresholds, the reverse charge procedure under § 13b UStG in construction and for services from abroad, down-payment and final invoices, credit notes and cancellations. Since the e-invoicing mandate, the format matters as well, and the German GoBD rules require invoices to be archived unaltered and machine-readable, which for an e-invoice means keeping the original XML.

In this category you will find practical guides for freelancers, trades and small businesses, with worked calculations and checklists. The invoice checker verifies the mandatory details under § 14 UStG, the small business calculator shows whether you stay within the thresholds, the PDF tool merges or splits attachments, and the e-invoice generator creates compliant e-invoices.