DATEV export with documents
Rechnungskit creates one EXTF booking batch for revenue and one for payments per month, in SKR03 or SKR04 (the two standard German charts of accounts). Every invoice booking carries a DATEV document link (Beleglink), and the documents come along as a Belegtransfer package. Once a batch is locked, every download is byte-identical.
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Why it matters
Between the shop, the payment provider and DATEV there is usually manual work: downloading payment reports, separating fees from sales, matching payouts and sending documents one by one. Each of these steps costs your tax advisor (Steuerberater) time and leaves room for mistakes. Bookkeeping rules also require that bookings, once handed over, stay traceable and are never changed silently.
What the DATEV export does for you
Every month Rechnungskit books two batches: revenue and payments. The revenue batch holds invoices and cancellation invoices (Stornos). The payments batch holds incoming payments, refunds, fees and payouts from your payment providers. Fees get a booking of their own and are never netted against revenue. Your tax advisor (Steuerberater) imports the finished bookings directly and no longer types up payment reports.
The export books the cases that usually need manual work the right way from the start. OSS distance sales carry tax key 240 and the destination country, refunds land on the account of the provider that made the refund, and foreign-currency documents use the same exchange rate as the invoice.
Every invoice booking comes with its document. Rechnungskit sets a DATEV document link (Beleglink) and adds the invoices as a Belegtransfer package, one PDF per invoice. That PDF is the ZUGFeRD invoice itself, so it is also the e-invoice. In DATEV, every booking then has its document image attached.
The month in four steps
- 1. Check the monthMonth overviewrevenue per tax rate and account, payments per provider, open items under "Ready to export?"
- 2. Create the draftBatch and DATEV packagedrafts can be deleted and created again
- 3. LockImmutableevery download byte-identical, verified with SHA-256
- 4. Import into DATEVDocuments firstthe Belegtransfer package first, then the booking batch
Before the export you check the month. The overview shows what the batch will contain and lists missing accounts before any file is created:
Once the draft exists, the export page holds the booking batch, the DATEV package with the documents and the log. It also states the order in which your tax advisor imports:
After the review you lock the batch (Festschreibung). From then on it never changes, and corrections go through new bookings in a later export. That is what § 146 Abs. 4 AO requires: a booking must not be changed in a way that makes its original content impossible to determine. Drafts, on the other hand, you may delete and create again.
Your tax advisor works alongside you
Instead of emailing files, you give your tax advisor access. In the tax firm access they check the month the same way you do, create the draft and lock it themselves. If they want, Rechnungskit creates the drafts for the previous month on a fixed day. Nothing is ever locked automatically, and you can revoke the access at any time.
How a tax firm gets access is explained under For tax advisors. For the cash-basis income statement (EÜR) the export works with the default settings. For balance sheet accounting (Bilanz) you first confirm a few account roles and decide on deferred revenue. All accounts are starting values for your tax advisor to review, not tax advice.
Setup and all the details
This page shows what the export does. The guide DATEV export and your tax advisor walks you through the setup: chart of accounts and account mappings, booking texts and cost centers, the accounts receivable model, switching the Belegtransfer package on or off, and the late export. The file format with every field, the package structure and the encoding is described on the DATEV interface page. How orders from Shopify, WooCommerce or Shopware and payments via Stripe or PayPal come together in the export is shown in DATEV export for online shops.
In detail
- Two EXTF booking batches per month, revenue and payments, in the SKR03 or SKR04 chart of accounts
- Fees and payouts of your payment providers as separate bookings, never netted against revenue
- Every invoice booking carries a DATEV document link; the Belegtransfer package attaches the document images to the bookings in DATEV Unternehmen online automatically
- Alternatively a simple documents ZIP, named by invoice number, for Pennylane or a document management system
- Accounts receivable (Debitoren) as one collective account, per payment provider, per payment method or one per customer
- Accounts come prefilled with the DATEV standard accounts; if a mapping is missing, no batch is created until it is added
- After locking, every download is byte-identical and verified with SHA-256
- Test documents never appear in the export
Legal basis
- § 146 Abs. 4 AO (Ordnungsvorschriften für Buchführung und Aufzeichnungen): Rules for bookkeeping and records (German Fiscal Code). Bookings must not be changed in a way that makes the original content impossible to determine; locking (Festschreibung) addresses this.
- § 147 Abs. 1 Nr. 4 AO (Ordnungsvorschriften für die Aufbewahrung von Unterlagen): Rules for keeping records. Booking documents must be kept; the document link connects every invoice booking with its document.
- GoBD, BMF-Schreiben vom 28.11.2019: Circular of the Federal Ministry of Finance dated November 28, 2019: principles for proper electronic bookkeeping and document storage.
- GoBD, Zweite Änderung, BMF-Schreiben vom 14.07.2025: Second amendment of July 14, 2025, including changes on storing e-invoices.