Task guides
Fill in the company profile: letterhead, tax numbers, bank and e-invoice contact
Step-by-step task guide: Settings and security.
- Open Settings, section Company, tab Company profile. Everyone who can open the client can read it; owners, admins and accountants can change it, other roles see a notice that they may only view it. The bank details, the BZSt switch and the four-eyes switch can be changed by owners and admins only, and every IBAN change is reported to all owners.
- Section Letterhead: Company name, Legal form, Street and number, Postal code, City, Registered seat (if different from city), Register court and number and Managing directors (one name per line, a GmbH must list all of them). These fields feed the invoice and the company footer of every customer e-mail. If some are empty, a warning names them: the e-mail is still sent, but its footer stays incomplete. Finalizing an invoice is refused when the name and address, the tax number or VAT ID, or (for a legal form that is in a register) the register court and number are missing.
- Section Tax profile: VAT ID, Tax number (German clients only, 10 to 13 digits), Taxation basis (accrual or cash basis), Profit determination (EÜR or balance sheet; a legal form that must keep a balance sheet is refused the EÜR), VAT return period and the checkbox Small business (section 19 UStG). A Swiss client sees its UID and its MWST period instead, and none of the German tax office fields. A wrong VAT ID, tax number or postal code (five digits in Germany, four in Switzerland) is refused with a message naming the problem.
- Section Invoice contact: Contact person, E-mail and Phone. The XRechnung requires all three, they are printed on the PDF, and the e-mail address is the reply address of the invoice e-mail. Without it the send form warns that replies reach nobody.
- Section Bank details for invoices: IBAN and BIC, printed on the invoice. An e-invoice cannot be finalized without the IBAN.
- Default e-invoice format is ZUGFeRD (PDF with XML) or XRechnung (XML). It applies to invoices to business customers in the client's own country. A contact with a Leitweg-ID always gets an XRechnung, private customers get a PDF only, and business customers abroad get an e-invoice only if you tick E-invoice (ZUGFeRD EN 16931) for business customers abroad too. An e-invoice also needs the issuer's VAT ID or register number: the tax number alone is not accepted. When something is missing, finalizing is refused with a sentence naming it, and no invoice number is used up.
- Let the assistant fill it in from your own invoice: Attach your current invoice to the assistant chat and ask it to set up the company from it. The assistant proposes the letterhead, tax, bank and contact data the invoice prints, and nothing changes until a person accepts the proposal in the inbox; a new IBAN or BIC can be accepted by owners and admins only. The assistant cannot save these details itself, and it does not copy the invoice layout in the same step: logo and look are a separate proposal (see the invoice look page).
- Choose Save; Saved confirms it, and a refused value names its field. Other switches on this tab: Confirm buyers' foreign VAT IDs with BZSt (section 18e UStG), Compute the VAT return (UStVA) and ZM and export them as files (draft) (nothing is sent to ELSTER) and Require a second person to accept proposals (four eyes).