No one likes getting invoices, after all, that means paying money. Much rather be on the other side and write invoices to others and then receive money. Isn’t that right? And yet they are part of the documents we encounter again and again in business – these invoices.

An invoice is a document with which a company settles deliveries and other services with the recipient of the service. It does not matter how this is called exactly (Invoice received, Invoice issued, Invoice deducted, Invoice final, etc.). Invoices can be roughly divided into two groups from an accounting point of view: Cost and Goods Invoices.

The difference between cost and goods invoices is that a goods invoice always refers to an order of goods, while a cost invoice mostly refers to services rendered.

Example:
You order a truckload of construction material. Here you will receive a goods invoice that refers to your order and also explicitly shows what is charged for goods.

In the case of a service (telephone bill,…), you are usually charged according to the time and effort involved. That is why this is called a cost invoice.

So now we know what an invoice is, sell our goods/service to a customer and invoice him for it. What do we have to pay attention to, what must be on an invoice in any case? According to §14 UStG, the following points must be included on an invoice:

• Full name and address of the company providing the service and the recipient of the service
• Tax number (tax ID) or VAT ID (USt -IdNr.) of the performing company
• Date of issue / Invoice date
• Consecutive unique invoice number
• Date of delivery or service
• Quantity and type of delivery or service
• Invoice amount, broken down into net amount, tax rate, tax amount and gross amount

Regardless of the way you receive invoices, electronically or by mail, they all need to be processed. With DocBits you can do this in just a few minutes. Thanks to AI swarm intelligence, DocBits is able to scan and process invoices in the shortest possible time.