Receiving e-invoices: invoice intake in a construction company

A well-organised intake for an e-invoice (E-Rechnung) has six steps: one mailbox, checking the data record, allocation to the building project, approval by site management, unalterable storage and handover to accounting. A program reads the file. My assumption, not measured: allocation and approval take the most time, because people have to decide there.

How it often works today

A survey by the ZDH (Zentralverband des Deutschen Handwerks, the German Confederation of Skilled Crafts) of almost 2,000 craft businesses (press release of 18 May 2026) found an average of around 1,200 incoming invoices for 2025, of which only about half arrived as an e-invoice. Processing is mostly manual; fully automated workflows are the exception. About half of the businesses find receiving and processing more laborious than with a PDF invoice. The figures apply to craft businesses, not to all construction companies, but they give a rough guide.

A typical picture, as a sketch and not a measured value: the invoice arrives with one person and is forwarded, printed or put in a folder. Site management gets it by email, the document goes to accounting, and the XML file stays unopened. Who allocates it to a building project and when the early-payment discount (Skonto) period ends is, in the end, known only to whoever had the email.

Receiving an e-invoice: mailbox and check

You can receive e-invoices with an email mailbox (BMF letter of 15 October 2024, a circular of the Federal Ministry of Finance; below “BMF 2024”, para. 40). In its FAQ, the Federal Chamber of Tax Advisers (Bundessteuerberaterkammer, BStBK) recommends retrieving e-invoices daily or several times a day and documenting receipt. If the email serves only as a means of transport, like an envelope, it does not have to be kept as well. If it contains details that must themselves be retained, keep it unaltered. You may also keep it voluntarily to evidence sender and time.

Then the data record is checked. With ZUGFeRD, the embedded XML is read, not the PDF image by OCR. A validation shows format errors and business-rule errors. According to the FAQ, mere warnings are in principle no reason to reject the invoice. What validation does not find is described in the article “XRechnung and ZUGFeRD: what the data set holds, how to read it”.

XML needs no AI for this. Only a PDF without a data record, or a scan, has to be read out first. Because a wrongly read amount is expensive, a person confirms the fields there.

Invoices do not have to arrive by email. The BMF also names an electronic interface or a download via a portal as possible transmission routes (BMF 2024, para. 36). The more routes you allow, the more important a duplicate check becomes: if the same file is sent twice, that is harmless for tax purposes (para. 39), but it may be booked and paid only once.

Allocation to the building project

An invoice does not always carry a project number. Without a fixed rule it ends up with the wrong project. So decide what the allocation is based on:

• an order number or contract number that you give to the supplier,
• the project number in the reference of the data record,
• supplier and trade, if the supplier works on only one project.

An AI suggestion should be allowed to choose only values from the project list, and it should say “unclear” when nothing fits. Site management confirms or changes it. The suggestion saves searching; the decision stays with site management.

Approval by site management

Site management checks whether the invoiced work was carried out. For this the BStBK describes a checking path: the service on the invoice is compared with the order, the contract and the delivery note, at the level of the data record, using a program that makes the XML readable. Payment is instructed after the check at the earliest.

The attachments belong to this. The bill of quantities (BoQ), site measurements and timesheets are the basis of the approval. What the BMF says about these attachments is in the article “Interim and final invoices and measurement in e-invoicing”.

If the invoice has defects, it is queried with the issuer, and no payment should be made until this is resolved (BStBK FAQ). A correction is also made as an e-invoice where an obligation to issue an e-invoice applies (BMF letter of 15 October 2026, para. 20).

Making the early-payment discount deadline visible in the process

The early-payment discount (Skonto) is an agreement between you and the supplier. If the amount of the reduction is not fixed when the invoice is issued, the invoice must refer to the agreement. A general reference is not objected to if the agreement exists in writing and can be produced quickly (BMF 2026, paras 15 and 16). The deadline is therefore often found only in the agreement and not in the data record. Record the date of receipt and enter the end of the deadline in the approval. Then site management can see how much time is left.

Archiving an e-invoice: storage and accounting

Invoices must be kept for eight years (section 14b of the German VAT Act, Umsatzsteuergesetz, UStG). The period starts at the end of the calendar year of issue and can run longer, as the article Retaining e-invoices: data set, period and archive explains. For an e-invoice, at least the structured part must be kept so that it exists intact in its original form (BMF 2024 as amended in 2025, para. 60). Incoming documents must be kept in the format in which they were received, for an e-invoice that is XML (GoBD para. 131). Storage outside a system that meets the GoBD (German principles for proper bookkeeping and record-keeping) is not in itself a breach of section 14b UStG for VAT purposes, but the GoBD continue to apply for other tax purposes (BMF 2025, paras 60 and 61). According to the BStBK FAQ, the requirement that nothing may be altered also covers tax-relevant additional information in an accompanying document. If the data record is converted into an in-house format, both versions are archived under the same index under GoBD para. 135, and the converted version is marked as such.

After that, accounting or the tax adviser (Steuerberater) assigns the account codes. The technology does not do this; for the demarcation see section 2 of the Tax Advisory Act (Steuerberatungsgesetz, StBerG).

Who clarifies what

The BStBK also advises agreeing between client and tax adviser who takes over the technical check of format and business rules in addition to the check of content. That depends on whether you validate yourself before filing or the firm does it with its software.

Invoices contain personal data, for example the names of sole traders and account details. Such an intake can be operated in line with the GDPR if access, deletion periods and service providers are regulated. Your data protection officer clarifies the individual case.

What you can do now

1. Set up an invoice mailbox and decide who retrieves it every day.
2. Decide what you use to recognise a building project, and keep a list of project and order numbers for this.
3. Determine for each building project who approves and who stands in.
4. Ask your tax adviser where XML files together with their attachments should be stored unaltered.

General information, not legal or tax advice. Your tax adviser clarifies the individual case. As at 13 November 2026.