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Performance invoice format for Finance

starting January the 1st 2025 the E invoicing obligation begins and E invoice is an electronic invoice in a structured format this does not mean what we would traditionally understand as an electronic invoice such as a PDF document but rather a legally mandated file format in the future invoices must be issued either as X invoices or as zuker re starting January 1st 2025 there will initially only be the obligation to be able to receive such invoices and since both ex invoices and zuk reum can be easily sent via email it is sufficient to Simply have an email address for receiving them and so nothing will change for you initially at least in the year 2025 starting in 2027 or 2028 you will also have to issue X invoices or zuk fed re since this will happen anyway in the near future at this very moment is actually the right time to take a look at your account processes and see how to manage everything digitally and automatically by the way if you are worried about high cost regarding e invoices take a look at the video I linked to here in the top right I presented a few Solutions there that allow you to create e invoices for free in this video we want to clarify the question of which invoice format is better in the past it was never regulated in which format such an invoice had to be issued it was only regulated what information must be included in such an invoice so the address of the service provider recipient date performance date and so on this means that this has always been regulated but the file format was never regulated and now there is X invoice or and I would like to start the comparison with a PDF invoice a PDF invoice is not an e invoice and therefore will no longer be allowed in the future however you can still send PDF invoices for another two or three years and to be honest for most of us the PDF is the starting point so let's take a look at such a PDF file so we are here in my folder and we see three invoices specifically three different invoices because they are three different file formats and first we will take a look at invoice 26 to be honest this is relatively unspectacular at first it is a simple PDF invoice that means it is exactly the kind of PDF invoice we are familiar with here is the invoice from the service provider the invoice number and so on this is a completely normal PDF invoice and I can process it like this when I receive it I can print it out if I want very very important in case any of you expect that you do not have to print an invoice that you Reed digitally so the original is the PDF that you received you do not have to print such invoices yes and you can read the invoice visually just like normal that means you can take a look at it you can check the bank details at the bottom you can simply transfer the money and that's it the past was that simple at least this invoice format was quite practical for us as humans accounting software actually had recurring problems with it I mean the invoice is not greatly designed it is relatively clearly structured and has good contrasts however it is indeed the case that this invoice must be read visually because it is like an image file and accounting software struggles with this to some extent because these invoices are simply structured differently sometimes they have different colors logos layouts thus accounting software may not recognize contents the description of services is at the top right in the middle or at the bottom the account details are located in different places each time and so on this means that accounting software has indeed faced challenges with this sometimes and that's why there are now the two new file formats and the First new file format we want to look at is the X invoice the NX invoice is basically the complete opposite of the PDF invoice because the X invoice is a purely machine readable format ultimately the X invoice is an XML file which means it looks a bit like computer code and in this code all the information that is also on such an invoice is included description of services date of service invoice and so on all of this is included in this code and machines can read this incredibly well this means that these invoices in XML format can simply be uploaded to your accounting software and then the information from this invoice does not need to be read visually anymore but can be processed directly this makes everything significantly easier for accounting software and speeds up the entire accounting process and we will also take a direct look at an X invoice and we are back in my folder and here we see the invoice 25. XML this is an X invoice and we can open it we will open it in a text editor and then we will see the invoice which looks as follows as I said this is basically computer code and theoretically we can read out information here such as payment terms payment within 14 days then we see here is my name somewhere in it however it becomes relatively difficult when I as a customer receives such an invoice because if I don't have software with which I can visualize everything properly then it's not so easy to find out what I'm supposed to pay for and where I should pay it this means that an X invoice is convenient for the accounting software but honestly it is rather unfriendly for people to read and if you're not sure that your customer has an invoicing program an accounting program then this format is not particularly recommended because you run the risk of not getting your money or getting it late as your customer simply cannot do anything with this file and for that there is a hybrid form between PDF and XML and that is the so-called zuk dat and we will take a look at it now the zuk feed format is actually a combination of the two formats scene that is a PDF and an XML file humans can view the PDF normally and the Machine can easily read the XML file this is actually The Best of Both Worlds and we will take a look at that as well we are back in my invoice folder and here we see invoice 27 specifically invoice 27. PDF so this appears to be a PDF just like invoice 26 which we looked at first as well however if we look at the file size now we see that this invoice 27 is at least about as large as the XML invoice and the PDF invoice combined this means it must be something more than just a PDF invoice and we will simply open that as well and we can open it with all the programs that we can also use to open PDFs and we will do that now and we will simply see an invoice that looks like a normal PDF invoice such as a standard one for now it is simply a PDF invoice but with a special feature this PDF invoice actually has an integrated XML file and now the question arises how do I know that is not a PDF invoice because it looks like a PDF invoice it has the PDF extension and can be opened like a PDF why is this not a PDF or how can I actually recognize that this is a zugferd invoice and that this is now an e invoice the zuger invoice is a PDF invoice with an attached XML file and we can look at attached information or files by clicking on the paperclip on the right here and there we see that this Zord invoice or this PDF invoice actually has an attachment and that's why this invoice is not a pure PDF invoice but rather a Zord invoice because it includes a PDF and an XML file and here we can also simply open this XML file with a double click and then we see the invoice information that we visually represented on the PDF now here as well in XML format in Dean this means that a zugferd invoice ultimately includes both the zugferd file serves both the human with the visual representation and the accounting program with the XML file and ultimately that is also the reason why I would recommend that you write zugferd invoices because all the people who do not have an accounting program yet or those who do not need to receive e invoices at all for for example if you write invoices for a customer then they do not have to be e invoices however you still want to receive the money and then honestly it makes no sense to send this customer an XML file and I'm cumbersome sending the customer PDF invoices then sending the corporate customers X invoices just write a zugferd invoice for all your customers and those who would like to view the PDF can do so can then continue to work with it and those who have professional software can make just as much use of the file format because the software simply continues to use the XML data this means that ultimately with the zuger file all your customers will be happy and you also ensure that this invoice is paid promptly because it can definitely be read and processed by your customers regardless of how your customer Works however I have a small warning the zuker data format has a problem namely there are essentially two documents in one what do we do if something different is stated in the PDF that is in the visual representation than in the X invoice the risk exists at least theoretically this will not happen in normal business transactions but if someone indeed has fraudulent intentions it could be conceivable to send you m a PDF invoice that states One account number or amount while the XML file shows a double amount for example and if you as a person check the PDF and say well that looks correct in the background the machine is working with the information from the XML file which contains the double amount then it is quite possible that you accidentally pay too much that's why you should pay attention especially at the beginning that the data taken by the accounting program from the XML part matches the information visually seen on the PDF or the PDF portion of the Zord invoice in summary it can be said that with the introduction of the E invoicing obligation a few small things need to be adjusted however since significantly more work is not waiting for you rather less because the accounting program simply knows more reliably what is on these invoices and if you use a professional accounting program then honestly you don't really have any problems with it we just looked at the three invoices as a pure file format usually I don't open these invoices on my desktop or in a folder but in my accounting program and here we see the three invoices first the PDF invoice I can simply open it here and view it as I would normally view a PDF invoice and then we look at the Zord invoice we see it here and we recognize it by the fact that it says e invoice here and that the document format is PDF ZF this means I know that this is now an e invoice I click on it and the structure here in the visualization looks exactly the same and last but not least the X invoice we click on it and we see again here invoice document format XML so X invoice we click on it and here in the accounting program everything is visualized for me like this all other invoices as well if you have an accounting program then you have no problem with the presentation and any attachments to a PDF file and so on but you can simply upload your invoices here here is also the note and then it simply shows you whether it is in fact an e invoice or not but the obligation to actually have an e invoice does not take effect until 2025 but rather from 2027 or 2028 I hope this video was able to help you and answer your questions if you still have questions about the topic of e invoices Accounting in general X invoice zuger invoice PDF or anything else write your questions and comments Below in the comment section and if you think this program looks cool I want to have it too check the video description linked it for you there you will also find a few Alternatives or you can just click directly here and now you could just watch another video on this channel I have prepared a few around 6 7 800 for example this one or that one [Music]