16. Glossary

The terms that appear in this handbook, in the interface, and in conversation with tax advisers, authorities and customers. German legal terms are kept in German — that is what your tax adviser and the tax office will say.

§ 14 UStG — The paragraph that prescribes what an invoice must contain, including a sequential, uniquely issued invoice number. This is why the platform assigns numbers under a lock and leaves no gaps.

§ 19 UStG (small-business rule) — Anyone below the turnover thresholds states no VAT. Switchable in the company profile; the invoice then carries the required note and the e-invoice the VAT category E.

§ 35a GmbHG — Mandatory details on the business letters of a corporation: legal form, registered office, register court, register number, managing directors. Stored in the company profile and bindable in templates.

§ 146 Abs. 4 AO — An entry may not be changed in a way that makes its original content unascertainable. This is why a finalised entry is immutable and is corrected by a Storno.

ACL (access control list) — The list of permitted actions behind a role. Called permissions in this handbook.

Add-on — A single module bought out of a higher plan without changing plan.

Activation link — The one-time link from the welcome or invitation e-mail through which a person sets their own password. Valid for seven days.

Audit log — The module that records who did what and when: sign-ins, changes to documents and master data, role changes, dispatch, payments. Filterable and exportable as CSV. Visible to the owner, company admins and auditors.

Auditor — Access level: reads all business data and the audit log, changes nothing.

BT numbers (BT-1, BT-31, BT-48, BT-152 …) — The standardised field numbers of EN 16931. BT stands for business term. BT-1 is the invoice number, BT-31 the seller's VAT id, BT-48 the buyer's, BT-152 the VAT rate of a line. Validation reports speak in these numbers.

BU key (BU-Schlüssel) — The tax key in the DATEV format. Left empty in our export, because the automatic accounts used already carry their rate.

CAMT.053 — The XML format for bank statements to ISO 20022. The modern standard in German online banking and the preferred import format.

Chart of accounts — The numbering system of bookkeeping accounts. SKR03 is organised by process and widely used, SKR04 by the annual accounts.

Converted — The frozen state of a document out of which the next one grew. No longer changeable, no longer deletable.

DATEV — The software house whose formats and charts of accounts are the standard in Germany. The export produces a posting batch in the EXTF format.

Document chain — Quotation → order confirmation → delivery note → invoice. Each stage freezes the previous one as converted.

Draft — A document or an entry that is still freely editable.

EN 16931 — The European standard for the electronic invoice. Both XRechnung and ZUGFeRD are forms of it.

EPC-QR / Girocode — The QR code to EPC069-12. Scanned with a banking app it pre-fills a SEPA transfer: payee, IBAN, amount, reference.

Finalise — To make an entry permanent. After that, only a Storno.

FinTS — The German standard for online-banking interfaces (formerly HBCI). The platform fetches your transactions over it when you connect your account.

GoBD — The German administrative rules on the proper keeping of electronic books and on data access. The source of the requirements on immutability, traceability and retention.

Grundbuch — The prompt, continuous record of every business transaction. In the platform, the bookkeeping journal.

Journal entry (Buchungssatz) — The double record of a transaction: debit to credit. With mixed VAT rates, one line per rate.

Leitweg-ID — The routing identifier of a German public authority. Mandatory on invoices to authorities; entered in the Buyer reference field (BT-10).

Membership — The link between a person and a company, carrying their access level there.

MT940 — The older SWIFT format for bank statements. Recognised on import.

Module unlock — The plan-dependent answer to whether your company may use a module at all. Independent of the role.

Number range — The rule by which document numbers are formed: prefix, format and reset. Every document type has its own.

Open items (OPOS) — Every finalised entry that is not fully paid, split into receivables and payables, with the days overdue.

Owner — The one person who owns a company. A property, not a role: it is transferred, not assigned.

PDF/A-3 — The long-term archival variant of PDF that permits file attachments. This is the technical basis of ZUGFeRD: the invoice PDF carries the XML inside it.

PEPPOL — The European network for electronic business documents. You hand your document to an access point, which delivers it to the recipient and reports the delivery status back.

RBAC (role-based access control) — You grant one role, and the role brings the permitted actions with it.

Reference (Verwendungszweck) — The text field of a bank transfer. If the invoice number is in it, automatic matching finds the invoice immediately.

Retention period (Aufbewahrungsfrist) — How long you must keep invoices and accounting records: eight years (§ 14b UStG, § 147 AO). Since 1 January 2025 it is eight years rather than ten, shortened by the Viertes Bürokratieentlastungsgesetz. The period starts at the end of the calendar year in which the invoice was issued and applies to outgoing and incoming invoices alike. For an e-invoice it is the structured data that must be kept, not only the readable rendering.

Role / access level — What a person may do in a company. Six levels from Company Owner to Guest, adjustable with individual rights.

Storno — The counter-entry that cancels a finalised entry. Both stay visible and are linked.

Stripe — The payment provider, in two separate roles: it collects your subscription, and it can — through a connection of your own — settle card payments from your customers directly into your account.

Tax category — A revenue or expense account from the chart. Because a German account carries its own VAT treatment, choosing the category settles both the rate and the VAT category of the e-invoice.

Validation report — The result of checking an e-invoice against the official rules. Only a valid e-invoice is archived and dispatched.

Value date (Wertstellungsdatum) — The date on which the bank makes a payment effective. It is the date that appears in the History as the payment date — not the date on which you confirmed the match.

VAT identification number (USt-IdNr.) — The VAT id, beginning with the country code (DE…). Mandatory for intra-Community business and a prerequisite for PEPPOL dispatch.

Denial (individual right) — A single permission explicitly taken away from a person. A denial always wins, even against the role.

History — The invoice's own tracking: created, finalised, sent, viewed, reminded, delivered, paid.

Input VAT (Vorsteuer) — The VAT you paid to suppliers and reclaim from the tax office.

UStVA — The VAT return (Umsatzsteuer-Voranmeldung): output VAT minus input VAT gives the amount payable to the tax office.

Webhook — A callback from outside into the platform: the payment provider reports a payment, the letter service a delivery, the PEPPOL network a change of state. Every callback has its signature verified.

XRechnung — The German form of EN 16931 as pure XML. The standard for invoices to public authorities, with additional German rules (BR-DE).

ZUGFeRD — The hybrid standard: a readable PDF invoice with the XML embedded. A person sees the document, a machine reads the data.

Access point — The certified service that delivers your invoice into the PEPPOL network.