GoBD requirements at a glance

GoBD is short for Grundsätze zur ordnungsmäßigen Führung und Aufbewahrung von Büchern, Aufzeichnungen und Unterlagen in elektronischer Form sowie zum Datenzugriff. In plain English: principles for proper keeping and retention of books, records, and documents in electronic form, and for data access by the tax authorities. The Federal Ministry of Finance publishes the administrative guidance that practices and auditors work with.

The GoBD sit alongside the Fiscal Code (Abgabenordnung, AO). They are not a product certification stamp you can buy. They describe how electronic bookkeeping must behave so that an audit can reconstruct what happened. Companies remain responsible for organisation, access rights, and retention periods even when they use cloud software.

For international teams running a German entity, the practical takeaway is: treat digital invoices, receipts, and bank lines as formal records. Ad-hoc edits without a trail, private email folders as the only archive, or unlocked past months create risk when the tax office asks for data access.

Records should be complete, correct, timely, orderly, and immutable where the bookkeeping requires it. Changes after the fact should remain traceable. Retention must keep the original content readable for the statutory period. Access rights should limit who may change master data or reopen periods.

“Immutable” does not mean you never correct a mistake. It means corrections are controlled: credit notes, documented adjustments, and logs, rather than silently overwriting a posted invoice months later. Period close and lock features exist to make that discipline enforceable in software.

Jupiter ERP supports PDF archiving with documents, activity logging, roles, tenant separation, and period logic. Period lock can make invoices, dunning notices, credit notes, receipts, and bank transactions immutable, manually or during the accounting export. DATEV export from Business helps hand structured periods to your tax advisor.

None of that is a GoBD certificate. Your internal guidelines, backup habits, who holds admin rights, and how quickly you post receipts still decide whether the overall process holds up. The Jupiter AI assistant can explain a screen or field; it does not certify compliance or replace your advisor.

Structured e-invoices (E-Rechnung) are still business records under German rules. ZUGFeRD embeds EN 16931 XML in a PDF; that file must be retained like any other invoice. Receiving structured files since 2025 does not remove GoBD duties for storage and traceability.

Jupiter ERP issues ZUGFeRD 2.x with the EN 16931 profile inside the PDF. Free covers a lean invoicing start; filing received e-invoices as expense receipts and DATEV export start at Business. Confirm retention and process design with your advisor.

Agree retention locations, who may unlock workflows (locks themselves are not undone in Jupiter ERP), when the month is closed, and which export format the practice imports. Ask how they want to exercise data access if the tax office requests it.

If you operate several companies in one Jupiter ERP organisation, tenant separation keeps books apart. That supports clear mandant boundaries, but you still need a named process owner per company. Founders on Free should know when Business becomes necessary for export and richer accounting controls.