Companies are increasingly concerned with the digitization of business processes, and for good reason. By introducing an ERP system or an industry-specific solution, the individual sub-processes are interlinked and optimally integrated into the overall process. Users also benefit from the mostly high-performance and fast systems by reducing manual activities and thus increasing work performance.

The European Union and the German government have also contributed to the support and further development of digitization. Based on the EU Directive 2010/45/EU, the German government enacted the E-Invoice Ordinance (ERechV) in November 2018, which provides for the gradual introduction of the transmission of electronic invoices. Following the implementation period for all federal authorities (2018/2019) and states (2020), all "suppliers to the federal government will be required to issue invoices in electronic form for public contracts as of November 27, 2020."

At first glance, the e-invoice does not differ from a paper invoice or a PDF file. The decisive feature is the structural preparation of the invoice. In this process, the contents of the invoice are presented in a structured and machine-readable format. This structured data record is issued, transmitted, received and further processed electronically.

The XInvoice standard is used to create an e-invoice. XInvoice is a data standard that standardizes the use of electronic invoices and consists of an XML data set.

In addition to this, other standards can be used as long as they comply with the European standard EN-16931 and the e-bill ordinance of the federal government. As an alternative, for example, the standard ZUGFeRD (Central User Guide of the Forum Electronic Invoice Germany) from version 2.1.1. in the profile XInvoice can be used. A ZUGFeRD invoice embeds the structured data in XML format of the XInvoice standard in a PDF file so that it can be read by the user. Such a so-called hybrid invoice is therefore readable by both humans and machines.

These regulations will certainly require some companies to adapt their processes and introduce new software. Nevertheless, e-invoicing offers very strong advantages in the long term. On the one hand, there are the ecological aspects. Electronic invoice processing not only saves money by eliminating postage costs, but also protects the environment by reducing paper consumption and eliminating the need for transportation.

On the other hand, there are the benefits of digitization itself, because simplified invoicing and significantly shorter processing times speed up the processing of invoices, which are thus paid more quickly. In addition, the e-invoice is filed electronically, thus saving costs for physical filing systems. Electronic filing, in turn, facilitates and accelerates the internal reconciliation and forwarding of invoices, as well as the retrieval of previously archived data.

One way to implement the provisions of the e-invoice regulation is to use the Odoo ERP system. This uses an open source library that adds ZUGFeRD content to PDF invoice files. We have described how we map invoicing in Odoo, for example, in our blog posts on the Sales Module or the invoicing of projects. Thus, Odoo not only represents a smart and user-friendly system for mapping company-wide processes, but also continues to develop in consideration of the current legal situation.

Are you looking for an ERP system with which you can create and process your e-invoices according to the required standards? No problem! Contact us now and we will support you as a reliable Odoo partner with extensive expertise from numerous Odoo projects!

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Sources: www.e-rechnung-bund.de, www.bmi.bund.de, www.bmwi.de, www.datev.de, www.heise.de