Technology
Electronic Signature
Definition
An electronic signature is used to authenticate and ensure the integrity of electronic documents. In the e-invoicing context, the qualified electronic signature (QES) under eIDAS was one method of ensuring invoice authenticity prior to the introduction of EN 16931. Today, for XRechnung and ZUGFeRD, the inherent structural integrity is considered sufficient; a signature is not mandatory but remains permissible.
Switch to German:Elektronische Signatur (DE)
Related terms
XRechnungXRechnung is the German standard for structured electronic invoices in public sector procurement (B2G). It is based on the European standard EN 16931 and is available in two syntaxes: UBL 2.1 and UN/CEFACT CII. Since 27 November 2020, federal public buyers have been required to accept electronic invoices in XRechnung format, and state and municipal authorities have been progressively included.ZUGFeRDZUGFeRD (Zentraler User Guide des Forums elektronische Rechnung Deutschland) is a hybrid invoice format that combines a human-readable PDF/A-3 file with embedded machine-readable XML data. The format is maintained by the Forum elektronische Rechnung Deutschland (FeRD) and exists in several profiles (MINIMUM, BASIC, EN 16931, EXTENDED). It is technically identical to the European Factur-X standard.GoBD (Principles for the Proper Keeping and Storage of Books, Records and Documents in Electronic Form)The GoBD are administrative guidelines issued by the German Federal Ministry of Finance for audit-compliant archiving and retention of tax-relevant documents in electronic form. They set requirements for immutability, completeness, orderliness, traceability, and machine readability. Electronic invoices must be retained in compliance with GoBD requirements — i.e., in their original electronic format, not as printouts.PDF/A-3PDF/A-3 is an ISO standard (ISO 19005-3) for long-term archiving of PDF documents that, unlike earlier variants (PDF/A-1, PDF/A-2), allows embedding of arbitrary file types as attachments. ZUGFeRD and Factur-X exploit this capability to embed the XML invoice data inside the PDF file, making the document simultaneously human-readable and machine-processable.