With the Growth Opportunities Act, the obligation to issue electronic invoices (e-invoices) in the B2B sector was decided and the compromise was approved in the mediation committee on 22.03.2024. This obligation applies from 01.01.2025, although there are some transitional periods.
What is the e-bill?
The definition of an e-invoice or electronic invoice refers to an invoice in a structured electronic format that is issued, transmitted and received and that enables further electronic processing, for example in accounting.
These format requirements are met, for example, by the XRechnung (already known in public procurement) or the hybrid ZUGFeRD format (combination of PDF document and XML file, from version 2.0.1).
What will change for invoice issuers?
According to the new requirements under the Growth Opportunities Act, the issuer of an invoice is obliged to issue an electronic invoice as described above. This only applies to services between entrepreneurs (B2B.
In addition, the supplier and recipient of the service must be based in Germany (or territories in accordance with Section 1 (3) UStG).
In principle, this obligation applies from 01.01.2025 - the following transitional periods have been set for issuing e-invoices:
…until the end of 2026
...until the end of 2027
from 2028
What will change for invoice recipients?
The new e-invoice obligation applies in principle to B2B invoices from 01.01.2025 - i.e. if the invoice issuer does not make use of the transitional periods, they can issue e-invoices from 01.01.2025. It should be noted that this does not require the consent of the invoice recipient, i.e. if the invoice issuer decides to transmit an e-invoice, the recipient must accept it and allow it to be received and processed.
Note: For B2C invoices, consent to electronic invoicing is still required.
Electronic invoices with Business Central and NAV
The new requirements have an impact on the business processes for issuing and receiving invoices for companies. In the Business Central and NAV environment, there are third-party apps that offer solutions for these requirements. The scope and costs of these solutions differ significantly in some cases.
Microsoft is working on a solution/extension as part of the new E-Documents module (overview of e-documents) announced as part of the 2023 Wave 2 releases in order to also send e-invoices as X-invoices with these features. A basis for sending e-invoices is already included in the above-mentioned release. According to the plans known to date, the enhancements for XInvoices are to be provided with the 2024 Wave 2 release (fall).
Further procedure
There are a number of solutions/apps on the market for the various requirements. For the receipt and processing (input management) of XRechnung, we recommend the Continia Document Capture solution, among others, based on our experience from numerous projects. There are other solutions for creating and sending (output management), which we can inform you about individually and according to your needs.
For further information, we recommend our presentation (participation free of charge, online or on site in Osnabrück) on the topic on 18.04.2024:
The xRechnung - new obligations from 01.01.2025 for B2B invoices
Register now free of charge for the TSO-DATA Solution Days on 17/18.04.2024 - all information, the agenda and registration options are available here:
Do you already have questions? Please feel free to contact us.
TSO-DATA
+49 (541) 1395-0
businesscentral[at]tso[dot]de
