Digital invoicing

A professional invoice is more than a PDF logo. Under German VAT law, regular invoices must carry the details in § 14 of the VAT Act (UStG): parties, tax number or VAT ID, issue date, a sequential number, quantity and kind of supply, amounts, and tax breakdown or an exemption note. Small businesses under § 19 follow a shorter list in the VAT implementing regulation. Whether that exemption fits you is a question for your tax advisor.

Templates and layouts keep wording consistent for repeat customers and cut typos. Bank-transfer invoices can include a GiroCode (EPC QR) so customers scan the payment in their banking app. Digital does not mean informal: the same statutory fields apply whether you print or send by email.

Ideally the invoice comes from a quote or order. Lines, discounts, and taxes stay identical. Headings and subtotals structure long documents without doubling the total. That avoids maintaining the same job in Word, Excel, and an accounting tool.

Status then stays visible: draft, sent, partly paid, paid, or overdue. Open items hang on the contact. When banking is connected, matching payments to invoices closes the loop without a separate spreadsheet of “who paid”.

Email from the system with archive and activity log helps when a customer says they never received the file. Dunning levels on open items keep liquidity visible. Dunning PDFs can carry the same GiroCode as the invoice where the product supports it.

Since 2025, structured e-invoices matter for many German B2B supplies. Jupiter ERP embeds ZUGFeRD 2.x with the EN 16931 profile in the invoice PDF. A plain PDF without structure is an other invoice under the mandate rules. Confirm your receiving and issuing deadlines with your advisor.

New accounts start with a 14-day trial of the full product, no credit card, and no automatic charge. After the trial you can stay on Free for a lean invoicing start: limited documents per month, invoices only, limited contacts and storage. Quotes start at Basic. Cash-basis profit statement and DATEV export start at Business. Dunning starts at Enterprise. Always check the pricing page for current limits.

The Jupiter AI assistant can answer short questions about the open invoice page when your plan includes the AI module. It does not replace checking statutory fields or tax treatment. GoBD-oriented archive, period lock, and export to the tax practice belong with accounting settings and, for DATEV, the Business plan upward.

German GoBD principles expect complete, correct, timely, and traceable records. Digital invoicing helps when PDFs are stored with the document, changes are logged, and closed periods are not silently rewritten. Software supports that; your processes and your tax advisor still own compliance for your firm.

Period lock can make invoices, credit notes, and related records immutable after export or on purpose. That is a control, not a certificate. Agree with your practice when months are closed and what export they expect each period.

A practical month-end checklist: close open drafts you will not send, match payments you can verify, export or email the period package your advisor expects, then lock the period. Keep the ZIP and the send log. If a customer disputes an invoice later, you can show what left the system and when, without reconstructing history from email inboxes.