Detlef Schmuck: “Printing PDF invoices is no longer enough. Only the digital document counts – but only if it is stored in a legally compliant file system.”
Hamburg, July 30, 2019 – An invoice in Portable Document Format (PDF) that you download from a portal or receive by e-mail and print out must be paid, but it is not a tax-deductible invoice. TeamDrive Systems GmbH (Hamburg) points this out, which, according to its own statements, finds this “PDF trap” very frequently among freelancers, the self-employed and small businesses. “Since 2015, the principles for the proper management and storage of books, records and documents in electronic form and for data access, or GoBD for short, have been in full force in Germany,” explains TeamDrive Managing Director Detlef Schmuck, and says: “When we introduce our GoBD-compliant file and document management system TeamDrive, we often find that the GoBD principles are not adhered to, and in some cases are not even known.
Anyone who acknowledges this with a shrug of the shoulders is unaware that malice can have devastating consequences during the next audit, warns TeamDrive. Since the PDF invoices are all invalid, they would not be recognized by the tax authorities and the taxable profit would increase accordingly. “If the principles of proper digital accounting are widely disregarded, the tax office can simply estimate the income and thus determine the tax liability almost arbitrarily,” says Detlef Schmuck.
Valid PDF invoices are only available if the files are stored digitally, explains TeamDrive. However, high demands are also placed on the digital storage systems by the tax authorities. Simply storing all PDF files in a PC folder is not enough. Instead, a file management and data management system must be used that complies with the GoBD principles, warns TeamDrive Systems GmbH, which offers such software at https://teamdrive.com . By the way, this applies not only to the recipient of an invoice, but also to the sender. Regardless of whether the invoice is generated in Word, Excel or another program, it must also be saved unchangeably in accordance with GoBD.
File management is of great importance because proper digital accounting not only includes accounting, but also quotations, calculations, performance records, statements of account and all other information that can influence the profit and loss account. “Basically, all operational files must be saved in accordance with GoBD,” TeamDrive boss Detlef Schmuck sums up.
It Can Also Be Done with Little Effort
For freelancers, the self-employed and small business owners, the question regularly arises how they can meet the requirements of the GoBD without sinking into the effort. The purchase of expensive business software or even a complex system for “Enterprise Resource Planning” (ERP) is not necessary for this, Schmuck contradicts the sales arguments of many ERP manufacturers. “There are alternatives that are much cheaper and still comply with tax regulations,” says the TeamDrive boss.
The remedy is a data management and archiving system that is simply placed under all existing business processes and all file management procedures. It is important that all documents can be stored in an audit-proof manner, i.e. that they are retrievable, traceable, unalterable and tamper-proof in the sense of the tax office. Thus, neither the programs nor the processes are significantly changed, but everything takes place as before, “only” on the basis of a GoBD-compliant file management.
Many companies create invoices with Word or Excel, for example. This will also be possible in the future as long as every change can be traced later through the file management, i.e. every version of the Excel or Word file is stored in a manipulation-proof way. For this purpose, the file system must have an indelible audit trail, i.e. a history that guarantees traceability. At the same time, a mode is required that ensures that documents that have been stored cannot be changed, or in other words that a new version is saved with each change. All this can be done by modern data management systems.
However such a system must correspond not only to the GoBD, but also to the GDPR, thus the data protection basic regulation. Ultimately, for a German company, only a file administration that is GoBD- and GDPR-compliant is acceptable, regardless of the size of the company. Thus the selection is relatively small.
