Uniform visual documents across all formats

Currently, hardly any other topic in the field of com­mer­cial processes is stirring up as much exci­te­ment as the mandatory accep­tance of e‑invoice formats, which will come into effect at the beginning of 2025. Even though the focus of e‑invoicing is on process auto­ma­tion, one element in the process chain for pro­ces­sing e‑invoices is often neglected: user-fri­end­li­ness. This is because where dark pro­ces­sing is unde­si­rable or impos­sible, invoices still have to be checked and approved manually by humans in practice.

Unfort­u­na­tely, the multitude of e‑invoicing standards in national and inter­na­tional invoicing also causes problems when it comes to visual receipts. Some of the different e‑invoice formats—such as ZUGFeRD—come with a classic paper-based repre­sen­ta­tion of the invoice as a PDF, while others—such as the German XRechnung or the Italian Fattura PA—do not.

The machine-readable XML format of e‑invoices is not par­ti­cu­larly suitable for employees in companies to check the content and technical details of invoices. People want to receive invoice documents in a format they are familiar with for checking purposes. The lack of a visible document signi­fi­cantly disrupts the approval process.

Even if visual receipts are included with the e‑invoice, they usually differ signi­fi­cantly in terms of pre­pa­ra­tion, design, and layout and are often confusing. Users therefore have to repea­tedly under­stand the respec­tive invoice layout and search for the relevant infor­ma­tion for checking – an effort that should not be unde­re­sti­mated.

In addition, the visual receipt that may be supplied is not legally binding and, as practice shows – espe­ci­ally with ZUGFeRD – is often incorrect. Only the digital data record is relevant for pro­ces­sing an e‑invoice and thus also for manual veri­fi­ca­tion and approval.

Although suitable software solutions – such as our e‑invoice pro solution – can be used to check whether the contents of the PDF visual receipt supplied match the data in the XML data record, how can the correct data record be displayed to the user in the event of dis­crepan­cies?

Our com­pre­hen­sive e‑invoice manage­ment solution will therefore offer the following option in the future: regard­less of the input format, a uniform visual document in PDF form will be generated auto­ma­ti­cally and audibly based on the XML data record and made available to users for visual inspec­tion.

A PDF supplied with ZUGFeRD, for example, can be discarded, reported as an error after an optional com­pa­rison with the XML data record, or included as an addi­tional document.

Four key advan­tages of the stan­dar­dized visual document

  1. Users always receive a uniformly formatted visual document for review and approval, in which all relevant fields and items are always located in the same places – even with inter­na­tional e‑invoice formats. This greatly sim­pli­fies manual review.
  2. The newly generated, uniform visual document can also be used inde­pendently of the actual XML data record of the e‑invoice in a wide variety of appli­ca­tions. Examples include assign­ment to customer or supplier files or to project documents. In these cases, it is usually for docu­men­ta­tion purposes and all affected systems will be able to display PDFs.
  3. For long-term storage in the sense of audit-proof archiving, the struc­tured data record is legally binding. However, the generated PDF visual document is a useful addition to the XML data record, as it will also be easy for humans to read when archived.
  4. Last but not least, the visual document generated by e‑invoice pro is largely barrier-free and can therefore also be used by employees who require a barrier-free workplace.

“Without a reliable and uniform visual document for content veri­fi­ca­tion and approval, e‑invoicing is not very practical. People want receipts, not XML.”

Tobias Widmann

Product Owner E‑Finance and e‑invoicing expert, Insiders Tech­no­lo­gies GmbH

The newly generated visual document provides all relevant infor­ma­tion in a compact and clear format. This sets it apart from other tech­no­lo­gies currently available on the market, which often generate multi-page visual documents even for short invoices, making them imprac­tical.

Our customers and partners will also have the option of cus­to­mi­zing the scope of the visible document and spe­ci­fying its design with colors, fonts, etc.

In addition, our solution offers the advantage of being able to generate uniform visible documents across inter­na­tional formats. This ensures effi­ci­ency in use and removes barriers to under­stan­ding foreign documents.

Read the white paper