Germany's new "e-Invoicing" law which requires software like this feels like it was written by lobbyists rather than people running businesses.

Emelia 👸🏻

Rather than just a PDF emailed of the invoice, it's an entire set of protocols you've almost certainly never heard of. DATEV is bad enough, so Germany decided to add more

https://www.datev.de/web/de/aktuelles/e-rechnung-mit-datev/datev-e-rechnungsplattform/

DJ Fragile Toolchains

@thisismissem urgh. I've seen a bunch of folks complaining about that already.

Emelia 👸🏻

They've declared PDFs emailed aren't enough, and instead they need some archaic likely xml based data interchange format with a special online inbox through which to receive invoices.

Literally every other country in the world is like "yeah, just email a PDF to our billing department"

Emelia 👸🏻

@plaindocs oh, and it's *mandatory* to implement.

Gerard Hynes

@thisismissem That's awful. You have my sympathies

Emelia 👸🏻

@gerhynes it basically means you have to buy/use software from a specific set of vendors. I kinda hope startups come in and eat DATEV's breakfast.

Renaud Chaput

@thisismissem This might be an EU thing, e-invoices are becoming mandatory in France now. Many accounting software or even "modern" banks are starting to offer compliant invoice generation services, and the government is supposed to soon launch a free & public platform for freelancers and small companies to do so

Emelia 👸🏻

@renchap oh wow, okay.

Georg

@thisismissem While I tend to agree this is weird (I just thought I didn't understand it, yet), isn't it a EU thing and Germany is the wrong to blame?

Emelia 👸🏻

@gcrkrause the information I had blamed Germany passing legislation, not the EU.

Jan Lehnardt :couchdb:

@thisismissem oh trust me, we all have heard of DATEV ;D

Emelia 👸🏻

@janl how about TRAFFIQX or PEPPOL network?

Jan Lehnardt :couchdb:

@thisismissem is wasn’t looking for an acronym fight.

Emelia 👸🏻

@janl yeah, I read this page and was like "what the fuck are you talking about??"

https://www.datev.de/web/de/aktuelles/e-rechnung-mit-datev/datev-e-rechnungsplattform/

(This was supplied by my company's accountant)

Samir Al-Battran

@renchap @thisismissem
I will just add that any form to move away from pdf invoices is a step in the right direction.
It's a massive pain to do accounting at the end of the year, expense tracking should be the easiest thing to do in 2024, you shouldn't need to hire a "book keeper" to enter the receipts for you, and you shouldn't need to hunt them down in your mailbox either
I applaud the EU for standardizing this, to me this sounds like USB-C

Emelia 👸🏻

@samir @renchap you do that stuff once a year? I generate about 50 invoice receipts a month, plus other invoices & have a bunch come in each month. Sure, it takes me time, but I'd rather simple that works together with a wide range of software & needs, instead of complex data interchange formats that I have to buy software to use.

Samir Al-Battran

@thisismissem @renchap
Oh, invoice generation is simple, you click a button and send it ..... and in 99% of the cases it's automatically sent.

The issue is on the receiving end, it's a nightmare to reconcile all the invoices, that's why I do it once a year, if I had to do this each day/week I would hate each and every day of the year

Emelia 👸🏻

@samir @renchap by "generate" I mean both creating them and filling them as revenue in accounting software and reconciling bank transfers with invoices — last I did this it took me 9 hours.