Benefits and necessity of electronic invoices
Electronic invoices are an increasingly common way to bill products and services. Compared to the classic paper invoice, you save time (e. g. for creation, transport and processing) and costs, as well as natural resources (paper).
Moreover, since November 27, 2020, the German eInvoicing format XRechnung has become obligatory if a company wants to send an invoice (amount of EUR 1,000 and higher) to public authorities at federal level and in some federal states (for example Bremen since November 2020 and Baden-Wuerttemberg starting January 1, 2022) in Germany.
XRechnung is a German standard, but it transforms the European standard for electronic invoicing EN 16931-1 into national law and thereby implements Directive 2014/55/EU of the European Parliament and the Council.
What is required for efficient electronic invoice processing, are generally recognized, uniform standards that are easy to apply in practice. This is especially true in the general case that buyer and seller do not use the same invoicing and accounting software. The PDF Xpansion SDK product offers such standards and corresponding functionality.
The product supports the electronic invoicing specifications FACTUR-X, ZUGFeRD (all officially published standards, currently 1.0 to 2.1.1) and XRechnung (all officially published standards, including 2.1.1). All of them are compliant with the standard EN 16931-1. While XRechnung only needs a structured XML file that can be read/loaded by appropriate accounting programs or billing systems directly, ZUGFeRD and FACTUR-X consist of a PDF/A3-file that is the visual representation of the invoice (just like a “simple” PDF file, for example based on a Microsoft Word document) plus a structured XML file with the invoice content. This XML file can be read/loaded by appropriate accounting programs or billing systems as well.
Feature sets of PDF Xpansion SDK - eInvoicing 3 (Invoice Receipt Plus)
The product is made to process incoming electronic invoices that have the specifications FACTUR-X, ZUGFeRD or XRechnung. It offers the following:
- Extract XML invoice, including validation of embedding
- Read invoice data including validation of XML structure
- Support of all profiles currently possible according to the mentioned eInvoicing specifications, including the “Extended” profile
- PLUS: Visualize XML invoice if the users of your application need a visual representation of it, and they can read like a “normal”, non-structured document (generate a PDF readable for humans, using XML file and a predefined design template, the design template comes with the product)
- Additional option: ask to create a specific design template according to your requirements (template and price subject to separate request)
Example scenario for XML and PDF/A-3 invoice processing
- Open an existing PDF/A-3 file (= visual representation of the invoice)
- Extract the embedded XML file for reading/opening in and by the accounting software
- Validate the embedding with reference to the relevant specification
- Validate the XML structure with reference to the relevant specification
- In case your users only receive XML invoices: create “simple” PDF files based on the XML invoices and a predefined template
