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Rechnungskit
E-invoicing software · made in Germany

A small online shop without a shop system: an order page with e-invoices

The Rechnungskit shop page gives you an order page for a manageable number of products, without setting up a shop system. Buyers choose quantities, see the goods total and shipping, and pay through your payment provider or by bank transfer. Every order becomes an e-invoice and goes into the DATEV export. There is no stock tracking, no variants and no discount codes; if you need those, stay with a shop system.

One link, one QR code, one page with your products. The buyer orders several items in one cart, you get one order and one invoice, and your tax advisor gets the DATEV export.

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The gap

Writing invoices is easy. Writing compliant ones is not.

The difference between a PDF and a compliant e-invoice matters at the next tax audit. Rechnungskit closes exactly this gap.

Without RechnungskitWith Rechnungskit
A shop system with a theme, plugins and updates for five products An order page under your name, set up in a few minutes
Orders by email or phone, with the invoice typed up by hand afterwards Several products in one cart, one order, one e-invoice
Slips of paper with addresses at the trade fair, typed in later A QR code as SVG for flyers, stands and your trade fair booth
Bank transfers you have to match to an order in your bank statement Card, PayPal or SEPA through your provider, plus pay by invoice or prepayment
How it works

Four steps to a compliant e-invoice.

  1. 01
    Add your products
    Add your products with a price and a VAT category and turn on the checkout. For each product, decide whether buyers may choose a quantity, optionally with a maximum. You can add an image and a longer description for the shop page.
  2. 02
    Design the shop page
    Title, introduction, accent color and a grid or list layout. You pick which products appear and in what order, and you set a flat shipping fee, optionally free above a certain order value.
  3. 03
    Publish and share
    The page is only reachable once you publish it. Put the link on your website or in your newsletter, and print the QR code on flyers or your trade fair stand.
  4. 04
    The order becomes an invoice
    The buyer goes to checkout and pays. Digital services are invoiced right away, goods when they ship. The e-invoice goes into the GoBD archive and the DATEV export.

Who the shop page is for

Many small sellers can fit their whole range on a single page: a roastery with six coffees, a farm with boxes and jars, a publisher with three books, a consultant with two workshops and a handbook. For a range like that, a shop system quickly becomes more work than it is worth. The theme, payment plugins, legal texts and updates all need looking after, and proper invoices still do not appear on their own.

Under the hood, the shop page builds on the Rechnungskit checkout. Your products sit on one page at checkout.rechnungskit.de/shop/your-name, the buyer adds quantities to the cart and goes to checkout. The result is one order with one invoice.

Where it fits well

Trade fairs, markets and flyers. Downloaded as an SVG, the QR code stays sharp at any print size. Visitors who do not want to carry anything away from your stand scan it and order later at their own pace. Buyers enter their address themselves, so nothing gets typed up.

Direct sales from the farm or the workshop. Regular customers order their box through the link and pay by card or transfer in advance. With prepayment, the confirmation page shows the account holder, the IBAN and the order number as the payment reference. Once the money arrives, you click "Payment received" and the invoice is created.

Business customers who buy on invoice. You can turn on pay by invoice for business customers. The invoice then shows the payment terms and your bank details, and you see the open receivable under open items. If a business from another EU country orders, the checkout checks their VAT ID (USt-IdNr.) live with the German Federal Central Tax Office (Bundeszentralamt für Steuern).

Bundles of digital products. The buyer orders the workbook, the template and the course in one go. Digital services are invoiced right after payment. Private customers first agree that delivery starts right away and confirm that this ends their right of withdrawal (§ 356(6) BGB, the German Civil Code).

Clubs and local initiatives with a small range. Jerseys, yearbooks or the club chronicle, sold under your own name, with documents your treasurer can pass straight on.

Why it does not replace a shop system

Strictly speaking, the shop page is an order page rather than an online shop. Some things are left out on purpose:

  • Stock: nothing counts down. A product stays orderable until you take it off the shop.
  • Variants: you set up size or color as separate products, which gets messy quickly with many combinations.
  • Discount codes and promotions: prices are fixed, and voucher codes cannot be redeemed.
  • Categories, search and individual product pages: everything is on one page, and details expand behind "Learn more".
  • Customer accounts: every purchase is a guest checkout.
  • Shipping: you print labels as you do today and then mark the order as shipped in Rechnungskit.

If you have a large range, work with variants, need promotions or want product pages that rank in search, a shop system is still the right choice. Rechnungskit does not replace it; it writes the invoices for it, with dedicated integrations for Shopify, WooCommerce and Shopware. You can also combine both, for example the online shop for day-to-day sales and the shop page for your trade fair booth.

What runs in the background

The shop page runs through the same pipeline as a single checkout link. The VAT rate comes from the product's VAT category. In a mixed cart, the flat shipping fee is split by the ratio of the goods values, as described in the article on shipping costs and VAT. Private customers in other EU countries get their own country's VAT rate once your EU sales to private customers exceed the €10,000 threshold, or if you have waived the threshold (§ 3c(4) UStG, the German VAT Act). You then report them through the OSS procedure (the EU One-Stop Shop).

The invoice is a ZUGFeRD file with the logo from your invoice template. It is archived to GoBD standards and appears in the DATEV export. Orders that do not come in through the shop page, for example by phone or email, you add as a manual order and bill the same way.

FAQ

FAQ

No, and it is not meant to. It has no stock tracking, no variants such as size or color, no discount codes, no categories and no customer accounts. For a catalog with dozens of items, filters and promotions, a shop system such as Shopify, WooCommerce or Shopware is the right tool. Rechnungskit creates the invoices for those as well, through the matching integration.
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Rechnungskit is not a tax advisory or law firm. This article explains general principles and does not replace advice from a tax advisor (Steuerberater, § 5 StBerG) or a lawyer (§ 3 RDG). Rechnungskit is built for businesses based in Germany and prepares documents, tax rates and bookings automatically. How your specific case is treated remains your decision, ideally together with your tax advisor or a lawyer.

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