Writing invoices (add-on)

With the invoicing add-on you write invoices by hand — for catering, room hire, a company event or the sale of goods, for instance. For this you keep your own customer register and an item catalogue. The automatic documents for paid bookings and vouchers are not affected and remain included in every plan (see Attendee invoices & online payment).

Overview

Without the add-on, the Invoices menu item leads straight to the overview of all invoices and cancellation invoices of your business. With the add-on it expands: Overview, New document, Drafts, Quotes, Recurring, Customers and Items. You set the defaults for your documents under Settings → Invoicing → Documents.

Included now: quotes and order confirmations, manual invoices as e-invoices (ZUGFeRD, for company customers also XRechnung), cancellation and credit notes, copying from any document, customer register, item catalogue, document defaults, payments per invoice (payment link, part payments, bank statement) and reminders as well as recurring invoices. In preparation: invoices in the partner app.

The add-on

“Invoicing” is an add-on and not included in the plan price: Invoicing add-on — 9,90 €/month plus VAT (introductory price until 31.12.2026, then 12,90 €), cancellable monthly, included in the trial. So during the trial you can try everything without requesting anything. A booked add-on applies as long as your subscription runs; if the subscription is cancelled or suspended, the add-on pauses as well.

Without the add-on, the pages of the module lead to an information page. There the owner requests the add-on with Request the add-on; afterwards the page shows “Request sent”. We get back to you and unlock it. The request itself is free of charge.

Your first invoice in 5 minutes

1. Check your invoicing profile: under Settings → Invoicing → Profile & number range you find your business's name and address, tax number or VAT ID, bank details, the prefix of your invoice numbers and the payment terms. Without name, address and tax number or VAT ID no invoice can be issued; an XRechnung additionally needs phone, email and IBAN (see Set up your invoicing profile).
2. Set the defaults (optional): under Settings → Invoicing → Documents you choose net or gross as the default and store texts for header and footer (see Document defaults).
3. Create your first item: Invoices → Items → New item — quickest with a template such as “Room hire” or “Catering”; you enter the price yourself (see Items).
4. Create a customer: Invoices → Customers → New customer or Add as invoice customer from a guest profile or a booking (see Customers). You can also do this later, right in the document.
5. Write the invoice: Invoices → New document, choose the customer, enter the service date, add the line with Add item from catalogue and click Issue …. The summary shows everything that will be on the invoice; Issue the invoice now assigns the number, and with “send by email” it goes out straight away (see Writing an invoice).

To try it out: an issued invoice cannot be deleted, only cancelled — it stays in the invoice sequence with its number. So practise with a quote (own number sequence) or with a draft that you delete afterwards. With the add-on, the “Getting started” checklist also shows “Check your invoicing profile” and “Create your first item”.

Customers

Under Invoices → Customers you create companies and private persons. Each customer gets a fixed customer number when saved (K-0001, K-0002 …) that never changes. Required are the company name for a company, the last name for a private person, and always the country. In addition there are the address, email and phone, the VAT ID for business customers in the EU (the UID in Switzerland), the Leitweg-ID for invoices to German public authorities, individual payment terms (leave empty to use the payment terms from your invoicing profile) and the document language.

VidiReserve only checks the format of the VAT ID and the Leitweg-ID. If an entry looks unusual, you see a note — the customer is saved anyway. If there already is a customer with the same email address, the page points this out so that no duplicates are created.

It is quicker with Add as invoice customer: the button is on the guest profile (for event providers: on the contact) and on a booking with a billing address. It pre-fills the form with the existing details and links the customer to the guest profile; nothing is saved until you click Save. Besides the invoicing permission you need the permission to see guests or bookings. If the source has no country, choose it in the form. You can search the list by number, company, name, email or city.

Items

Under Invoices → Items you maintain the services and goods you charge again and again. Each item has an item number (free to choose, unique within your business; the next free number such as ART-001 is suggested), a name and description — in English too if you like —, a unit (piece, person, hour, day, working day, lump sum, kilogram, litre, metre), the net unit price and the tax rate.

Write the price with a comma or point as decimal mark and up to four decimal places, for example 1500, 12.50 or 0.1234. Thousands points only work together with a decimal comma (“1.234,50”). A notation such as “1.500” or “1,500” is ambiguous (one thousand five hundred or one point five?) and is therefore rejected.

You choose from the tax rates of your country in the invoicing profile (Germany 0, 7 and 19 %, Austria 0, 10, 13 and 20 %). If you need a different rate up to 99 %, pick Other rate and enter it — VidiReserve then points out that it is not in the list. As a small business (§ 19 UStG) there is no selection: your documents show 0 %. To get started, templates such as “Room hire” (unit hour) or “Catering” (unit person) help: they fill in name and unit in an empty form, and you enter the price yourself.

Document defaults

Under Settings → Invoicing → Documents the owner decides whether prices in new documents are entered net or gross by default, which prefixes quotes (default “A”) and order confirmations (default “AB”) carry and for how many days a quote is valid (1 to 90). The prefixes must differ from each other and from the prefix of your invoices. In addition there are default texts for header and footer per document type, in German and English; the invoice texts appear in every new draft and can be adjusted there per document. Deadlines, fees and texts of reminder letters are next to it under Reminders (see Reminders).

Quotes

You write a quote in the same form as an invoice: Invoices → Quotes → New quote (or New document and the document type “Quote” at the top). Customer, lines, discounts, tax rates and texts work the same way; the service date may still be open. In Valid until you enter a date — empty means the default from the document settings (14 days from issuing, changeable). The default texts for quotes are kept there as well.

When you issue it (again in two steps with a summary), the quote gets its number from its own number sequence per year, for example A-2026-0001 — separate from your invoice numbers, so the invoice sequence has no gaps. At the same time the PDF is created and archived unchanged. An issued quote can no longer be changed; for a new version use Copy. Quotes are not invoices and therefore have no e-invoice.

With Issue and send the quote goes to your customer by email: with the PDF and a link where they can view it and accept it with one click or decline it (with an optional reason). You then receive an email; the quote's log records the time and a hashed fingerprint of the connection (no plain IP address). If your customer agrees by phone, record it in the quote with Record acceptance — this also works after it has expired.

Once the validity is over, VidiReserve shows the quote as expired; it can then no longer be accepted via the link. A run early in the morning sets the status, the display shows it right away.

Order confirmations

An order confirmation confirms to your customer what you will deliver — for example after an accepted quote. It is created like a quote (own number sequence, for example AB-2026-0001, archived PDF, sent with a link), but has no validity and no acceptance. If it comes from a quote, the PDF shows “Based on quote A-…”. You set the prefixes A and AB under Settings → Invoicing → Documents.

Converting

The detail of a quote offers Turn into order confirmation and Turn into invoice, the detail of an order confirmation Turn into invoice. Converting creates a draft of the next type — with customer, lines and texts (default texts switch to the new type, your own texts stay) and the same service period. Check the draft and issue it. Only then does the quote or order confirmation count as converted; until then it stays accepted or issued. Every detail page shows the document chain (quote → order confirmation → invoice) with links to predecessor and follow-up.

Copy as … creates a draft of another type from any document — for example a quote from an invoice for a repeat order. Unlike converting, this does not create a chain.

Drafts

A draft is not a document yet: it has no number, can be saved and changed as often as you like and can also be deleted (two steps) — this leaves no gap in the invoice sequence. Under Invoices → Drafts you find all open drafts, searchable by customer, company, email and reference; an issued draft leads to its invoice. A second click on “Issue” does not issue twice but shows the invoice that was already issued.

A draft that nobody has changed for 180 days is deleted by VidiReserve automatically — this also applies to drafts of quotes and order confirmations. Issued documents are never deleted, nor is the template of a running series.

Writing an invoice — step by step

1. Invoices → New document opens an empty draft.
2. Recipient: search the customer in the register (number, company, name, email or city) or create one with Create a new customer in the side panel without leaving the draft. A customer from the register brings address, VAT ID, Leitweg-ID, payment terms and language; if you switch the customer, Leitweg-ID and payment terms follow as long as you have not changed them by hand. If a single document needs a different address, tick Different billing address for this document: the customer stays assigned and the register stays unchanged. Without the register you enter the details freely.
3. Dates and references: the service date (required) and, for a period, “service until”, the payment terms in days, the customer's order number and the buyer reference or Leitweg-ID. The invoice date is always the day you issue it — so numbers and dates stay in the same order.
4. Items: Add item from catalogue prefills a line from the item catalogue; afterwards every field stays editable and the item itself is not changed. Add free line adds an empty line; an empty extra line is always there at the end anyway. Per line: description (several lines, printed in full on the invoice — even across a page), quantity (up to three decimal places), unit, unit price (up to four decimal places), discount in percent and tax rate. The arrows move a line, the cross removes it — all of it with the keyboard too. Below you see the totals per tax rate.
5. Texts: text above the items and below the totals — prefilled from the defaults in the customer's language, editable per invoice.
6. Issue … saves the draft and checks the details an invoice must carry (§ 14 UStG). If something is missing, the note appears right at the field. Otherwise you see a summary with everything that will be on the invoice and whether an XRechnung goes along; only Issue the invoice now assigns the next number. If someone changed the draft in the meantime, you return to the summary and check again. With the “send by email” tick (or straight away with Issue and send …) the invoice goes to the customer as a PDF (and XRechnung, where applicable) — as soon as both are archived, a few minutes later if need be. Without the tick it is only archived; it is then sent exclusively via Send by email on the detail page.

Checked before issuing: a complete invoicing profile (name, address, tax number or VAT ID), the service date, at least one item with description and tax rate, a total not below zero and — above 250 € gross — the customer's name and full address. Up to and including 250 € a small-amount invoice without address is enough.

The issued invoice appears in the overview (“Manual”) in the same number sequence as your automatic documents and cannot be changed afterwards. Its detail page shows PDF, XRechnung, sending and the log; you can send it again there. When the money arrives, record it there with Record payment — part payments too (see Payments); the document itself stays unchanged. In the overview you filter by origin, customer, open, partly paid, paid and overdue invoices; the “Open” column shows the amount still due, “Due” the payment deadline.

Sending: If the email does not go out once (for instance because the mail server is unreachable), VidiReserve retries by itself — with growing intervals, at most five times. After that the detail page shows “Sending failed”: check the email address and send again with Send by email. If a send is under way, the button says it “is being sent right now” — so the same invoice never goes out twice at the same time.

Net or gross

Whether you enter prices net (plus VAT, common for company customers) or gross (including VAT) is set by the defaults; in the draft you switch it per invoice. When you switch, your entries stay as they are: each line remembers whether its price was entered net or gross and only shows it in the other basis (converted with the line's tax rate). Switching back and forth therefore never changes an amount. Apply on a catalogue price inserts the item's net price and shows it in the current basis.

The calculation: net, the line amount is quantity × unit price minus discount, rounded to the cent; the VAT arises per tax rate from the sum of the lines. Gross, the VAT is taken out of the gross sum per tax rate — exactly as with the automatic documents. If the rounded lines differ from the total, the remainder is spread cent by cent over the lines with the largest amounts, without any line becoming negative — so the lines add up exactly to the total. The invoice shows the net amount and the tax per tax rate. As a small business (§ 19 UStG) no VAT appears on the invoice.

How to write prices is explained under Items — the same rule applies in documents. Quantities have no thousands separator: comma and point are both the decimal mark there, “2,5” and “2.5” are the same quantity, “1,125” is 1.125.

Copying

From any invoice — including an automatic document in the overview — and from any draft, Copy creates a new draft: with the customer (for automatic documents the buyer's details), all lines with quantities, prices, discounts, tax rates and units, the texts and references. Not copied: number, date, status, payments and the link to a booking or order; the original stays unchanged. The VAT treatment always comes from your current invoicing profile. A cancellation invoice cannot be copied.

A service period of whole months moves on by its length (room hire for September becomes room hire for October); a single service date stays as it is — the message after copying says what happened; check the date before issuing. The prices are those of the original. If the price of an item has changed since, the line shows “Catalogue price now …” with an apply button. Typical cases are monthly room hire, recurring catering or a new invoice after a correction.

Recurring invoices (series)

For services that come back regularly — monthly room hire, a maintenance contract, a fixed flat fee — set up a series. It belongs to an invoice draft, the template: open the draft, choose the interval, the first run, an end and what should happen at each run in the Repeat box at the bottom, and click Create series. You find all series under Invoices → Recurring; each series has its own page with its history there.

• Interval: monthly, every 2 months, quarterly, every 6 months or yearly. If a month lacks the day — such as the 31st in February — the series runs on the last day of that month and then again on the chosen day (31 Jan → 28 Feb → 31 Mar).
• End: no end, a last run date or a number of runs (up to 120). Only successful runs count — for a fixed term use “Last run on”. Once the end is reached, the series shows “Ended” and stays visible with its history.
• What happens at each run: Create a draft only (you check and issue yourself — the default), Issue (the invoice gets its number and is archived; you send it yourself if needed) or Issue and send by email. Issuing can only be chosen once the draft has all mandatory invoice details and a service period; sending needs the customer's email address. If it is missing later at the run, nothing is issued and the run is reported as failed.
• Service period: the series keeps the next period to be billed itself — when created, the one of the template; after that it moves on by the interval with every successful run: whole months as whole months (October → November, quarterly October–December → January–March), a single date with the month end as above (31 Jan → 28 Feb → 31 Mar). If the period is gap-free to the interval when it is created or set (it ends on the day before the next start), it stays gap-free: the next one always starts on the day after the previous end (15 Oct–14 Nov → 15 Nov–14 Dec; across February 30 Jan–28 Feb → 1 Mar–29 Mar → 30 Mar–29 Apr; the start may alternate: 31 Oct–30 Nov → 1 Dec–30 Dec → 31 Dec–30 Jan → 31 Jan–28 Feb → 1 Mar–30 Mar). Any other period moves both ends on their days, month end as above (16 Jan–31 Jan → 16 Feb–28 Feb → 16 Mar–31 Mar). A changed run date does not change the period, so nothing is billed twice; later changes to the template's period do not affect a running series. You can change it in the series settings (“Next service period”) — you are then responsible for gap-free periods yourself; the same applies when you change the interval (the period keeps its length apart from different month lengths; if that matches the new interval, it becomes gap-free), and saving points this out. If the series has changed in the meantime (for example by a run), nothing is saved — check the details again. The invoice date is always the day of the run.
• Prices and texts come 1:1 from the template. Maintain them there: every change applies from the next run. Changed catalogue prices of items are not applied by the series. Do not write the month into the line text — it would be copied 1:1; the service period appears on the invoice anyway. If the template is linked to a customer from the register, name and address come fresh from the register at every run.

Series run every morning (around 7:10, in winter around 6:10 Berlin time). If a run is due today or earlier — for example because you created the series after that time — Run now creates the document immediately (in the issuing modes with a second step). As with the button, at most 50 document emails per business go out within a 24-hour window starting with the first document email — anything beyond that is still issued and sent automatically once the window has expired (the follow-up run tries hourly); if sending fails, the follow-up run tries again. Drafts and invoices created by a series carry the badge “from series”; the overview filters them under origin “Manual · from series”.

The template is never issued itself — not even after the series has ended; for a single invoice from it, use Copy. It can only be deleted once the series has ended; the series and its history are kept. The automatic clean-up after 180 days without changes leaves templates of running series alone; the template of an ended series is deleted like any other draft.

Pause and resume: a paused series creates nothing. Resume continues with the next run from today — runs during the pause are not caught up; the next service period stays as it is, adjust it in the settings if needed. End series is final; documents already created remain.

If a run fails (for example because mandatory details are missing), nothing is created for that run — not even an invoice number. The series shows the reason, and the run is not repeated automatically: fix the cause and click Try again, or pause and resume to skip it. The daily overview email to the owner reminds you every day until it is resolved — even when there is nothing else to report; the “Recurring” menu item shows the number of series that need attention.

Catching up: if runs were missed for a few days, the series catches up missed runs in order, one document per run — at most 3 per run. If more are due, it pauses with “Check the backlog”: Catch up missed runs creates the rest right away in order (again at most 3, the remainder on the following days), Resume skips them. If the add-on is dormant, series are dormant too; they continue as soon as it is active again.

For bookkeeping: invoices from a series are created through exactly the same path as any manual invoice — same number sequence, same archive, same e-invoice (process documentation).

E-invoice: ZUGFeRD and XRechnung

Every manual invoice is an e-invoice: a PDF/A-3 with an embedded ZUGFeRD data set (profile EN 16931). People read the PDF, accounting software reads the data inside — with unit, discount (as an allowance per line next to the unit price) and tax rate per line, service period, order number, buyer reference and the customer's VAT ID. A VAT ID must start with its country prefix (e.g. DE123456789); a tax number is rejected when issuing.

An XRechnung (plain XML) is created in addition for company customers with postcode, city and email address, if your invoicing profile is complete (phone, email and IBAN included) and at least one line carries more than 0 % VAT (or the invoice has a VAT treatment); several tax rates are no obstacle (one tax block per rate). It is archived when the invoice is issued, goes out as a second attachment when it is sent and can be downloaded on the detail page — also in the overview's ZIP archive, and even without the add-on. If creating it fails once, VidiReserve catches up; the email only goes out with the XRechnung. For public-sector clients enter the Leitweg-ID as buyer reference (it is pre-filled from the customer register); without it your invoice number is used. A credit note goes out as type 381 with positive amounts and a reference to the invoice, a cancellation invoice as an invoice correction (type 384) with negative amounts.

Legal situation: In Germany, businesses have had to be able to receive e-invoices from other businesses since 2025; they have to issue them from 1 January 2027 if their previous year's turnover exceeded 800,000 €, and all of them from 1 January 2028. Small businesses remain exempt for good, and there is no obligation towards private customers; in Austria and Switzerland it only applies to public-sector clients.

Exceptions: invoices up to 250 € gross (small-amount invoices) and small businesses are exempt from the e-invoicing obligation — the ZUGFeRD data does no harm there, it is simply part of the PDF.

Reverse charge and intra-Community supply

If you provide services or deliver goods to a business in another EU country, the invoice is often issued without VAT. Choose a VAT treatment in the draft under VAT treatment:

• Reverse charge — VAT owed by the recipient — for services to a business in another EU country, such as consulting or organising for a company from France. Note: services connected with a property (room hire, accommodation) and admission to events are usually taxed where the property or the event is, and so are restaurant and catering services on site (taxed where they are performed, § 3a (3) no. 3 (b) UStG) — then the normal VAT applies. If in doubt, ask your tax adviser.
• Intra-Community supply — for goods going to a business in another EU country.

The choice only appears if you are not a small business and your invoicing profile contains your own VAT ID in your country's format. When issuing, VidiReserve checks that the recipient is a company with a VAT ID from an EU country other than yours, built in that country's format (for example ATU12345678 or FR12345678901 — if the format does not match, the message gives an example for the country). The document also needs the recipient's full address (street, postcode, city, country) — unlike otherwise, even below 250 €; for an intra-Community supply the country must be an EU country other than yours. Only the format is checked: whether the number exists and belongs to the customer is confirmed by the Federal Central Tax Office (qualified confirmation request) — you or your tax adviser take care of that.

Every line then carries 0 %: the rate field of each line is locked, and existing rates are set to 0 when you switch (a notice says so). The prices stay as entered and now apply without VAT — in gross mode the amount equals the net amount, so check the prices after switching. If you set the treatment back to “normal” and every line still carries 0 %, a notice points this out when saving. The document shows no tax line; instead the mandatory note appears below the totals — on German documents “Steuerschuldnerschaft des Leistungsempfängers (Reverse Charge, Art. 196 MwStSystRL)” or “Steuerfreie innergemeinschaftliche Lieferung (§ 4 Nr. 1 Buchst. b, § 6a UStG)” (for a business in Austria the Austrian wording), on English documents “Reverse charge: VAT to be accounted for by the recipient (Art. 196 VAT Directive)” or “VAT-exempt intra-Community supply”. Your VAT ID and the customer's both appear on the document. In the e-invoice (ZUGFeRD and XRechnung) the category is AE or K with the exemption reason.

Cancellation and credit note take over the invoice's VAT treatment, and so do copies and converted quotes; a series issues every invoice with the same check. If the treatment no longer fits — for instance after switching to the small-business scheme — the copy shows the error at the field and the series stops (run failed, with the reason; no automatic retry) instead of silently issuing something else. The EC sales list (in Germany to the Federal Central Tax Office, in Austria to the tax office) and the figures in the VAT return are your tax adviser's job; VidiReserve provides the overview with the “VAT treatment” column in the CSV and the DATEV export (own revenue accounts, the customer's VAT ID in every booking). VidiReserve does not transfer such documents to Lexware Office automatically — you record them there by hand, and the badge in the overview reminds you.

Cancellation and credit note

You never change an issued invoice; you correct it with a document of its own in the same invoice sequence — on the invoice's detail page:

• Cancellation reverses the invoice completely: open “Cancel invoice” and confirm with the button inside. A cancellation invoice with the opposite sign is created and the invoice counts as cancelled. You can give a reason for the log. For a corrected invoice, copy the original afterwards and issue the copy again.
• Credit note credits a partial amount: quantities from the invoice's lines (for example 2 of 20 persons) or a free line with an amount and one of the invoice's tax rates. You check the credit note in a summary and issue it there. The invoice remains (open or paid). Per tax rate you can credit at most what the invoice charged at that rate; the detail page shows what is left per rate. Rounding differences are distributed so that all credit notes together add up to exactly the invoice — including the VAT when you credit an invoice in several parts (say three thirds). Each single credit note differs by at most one cent from the calculated tax. The reason is printed on the credit note.

On request both go to the customer by email, as e-invoices and — if Lexware Office is connected — there as a credit note. Once a credit note exists for an invoice, a full cancellation is no longer possible: credit the rest with a credit note as well.

Payments: payment link, bank transfer, part payments, bank statement

Every manual invoice keeps a payment journal: each payment received is a line of its own with date, amount, method, reference, source (manual, online, bank statement) and who recorded it. This gives the amount due — the invoice total less payments and credit notes. An invoice with payments but an amount still due is partly paid; with the last euro it becomes paid. If a credit note brings the amount due to zero, it shows as settled. If more arrived than was due, the detail page names the amount (“overpaid”) — the repayment happens outside VidiReserve. The document itself never changes.

• Payment link: if you have set up online payment (PayPal, card via Stripe or SumUp — see Participant invoices & online payment), the invoice email contains a Pay now button. It leads to a payment page with the invoice number, the amount due, the payment deadline, the bank details of the invoice and the PDF. Online, the customer always pays the full amount due; the payment lands in the payment journal by itself. On the invoice detail page you copy the same link with Copy, for example for a message. Once nothing is due, the page no longer offers payment buttons. For very small remaining amounts (below €0.50) the page does not offer card payment via Stripe — have it transferred or record it manually.
• Bank transfer: the email and the payment page show your bank details and the invoice number as the payment reference. With I have transferred the amount the customer reports the transfer (date, optionally the account holder, at most three times a day). You receive an email, and the detail page and the overview show “Transfer reported” until you record the payment. The report is not a payment — check your account.
• Record payment (on the detail page, permission “Invoices: edit”): date, payment method, optionally a reference, and the amount. The full amount due is prefilled; a smaller amount is a part payment, more than is due is not possible. Several payments are possible; an accidental double click books nothing twice.
• Reverse: you reverse a wrongly recorded payment (manual or from a bank statement) at any time with a reason. A reversal entry is added to the payment journal; nothing is deleted, and the status follows the amount due. Online payments are refunded in the payments overview: the reversal entry is written automatically (source “refund”), and the payment then shows “refunded” or “partially refunded”. If that reversal could not be written, the payment shows “reversal missing” and can be reversed manually.
• More arrived than due? If more arrives online than is due (for example because a payment was recorded manually in between), VidiReserve does not book it automatically: the detail page shows a notice with the amount. Refund the difference in the payments overview — or reverse the duplicate manual entry and book the online payment with Book to invoice. If you already refunded the difference outside the system (for example by bank transfer), record it with Difference refunded – book the rest: the difference then counts as refunded and the rest lands in the payment journal. After a partial refund without a booking, the payments overview offers Mark the rest as refunded — then no money is held any more and the payment link is available again. “Mark as refunded” always means: everything went back.
• Reconcile a bank statement (Payments → Reconcile bank statement): open manual invoices are candidates with their amount due. If the payment reference names the invoice number and the amount matches, the suggestion is “certain”; if only the amount matches exactly one open item, “possible”. With Confirm the payment lands in the payment journal (source “bank statement”).

In the overview the Open column shows the amount still due, the “Partly paid”, “Overdue” and “Settled” filters take part payments and credit notes into account, and the CSV export has the columns “Paid” and “Open” at the end. If an invoice is overdue, reminders help.

Reminders: payment reminder, overdue notice, final notice

Overdue manual invoices have three levels: the payment reminder (always free of charge), the overdue notice and the final notice. Each level is a separate reminder letter as a PDF referring to the invoice number and date, with the amount outstanding, a new deadline and your bank details. The invoice itself never changes. The owner switches reminders on under Settings → Invoicing → Reminders.

• Deadlines: the payment reminder is due a configurable number of days after the due date (default 7). Each letter sets a new deadline — for the payment reminder the configured days until the overdue notice (default 14), for the overdue and final notice the days of the last level (default 14). Once the deadline has passed, the next level is due the following day. All deadlines: 1 to 60 days. You can send the payment reminder earlier by hand; the overdue and the final notice only once the deadline of the previous letter has passed — by hand, too. Exception: if the previous letter did not arrive, its deadline never reached the customer; then you can send the next level by hand earlier, and the letter mentions the undelivered letter.
• Reminder fee: for the overdue and the final notice you can set a fee of 0 to 50 € each (default 0.00 €). It appears on the letter as “plus reminder fee (charged separately)” below the amount outstanding (later letters also list earlier fees) — never added up with it. It is not part of the invoice: payments are always booked against the invoice, the payment link and bank transfer only cover the invoice amount, and the fee is not offset. The fee is damages and not subject to VAT; if you want to claim it, issue a separate invoice without VAT (0 %, “not taxable”) — check the details with your tax adviser. VidiReserve does not charge default interest.
• By hand: on the detail page of an overdue invoice, the Reminders box shows the next level, from when it is due, the new deadline and the fee. Send reminder expands the summary with a PDF preview; only the second click creates the letter and emails it with the PDF attached (permission “Invoices: edit”). Without an email address only the PDF is created, for printing. The email contains the payment link and your bank details with “I have transferred the amount”, where set up. Reminder emails count towards the daily limit for document emails (50 per business within a 24-hour window starting with the first document email); once it is reached, no letter is created until the window has expired. You change the wording in the email templates (“Payment reminder / overdue notice to customer”).
• Automatic: with Send automatically the due level goes out by itself every morning — at most 25 letters per business per run, plus the daily limit of 50 document emails, and only to customers with an email address. Automatic sending waits while the customer has reported a bank transfer in the last 5 days or a payment was received in the last 3 days; it skips invoices that were never sent by email themselves (sending held back) and does not move to the next level while the last letter has not been delivered. It never sends reminders for paid, cancelled or fully credited invoices. There is at most one letter per level.
• Pause reminders: on the detail page you can pause reminders per invoice (for example for an instalment plan) and resume them. Automatic sending then skips the invoice; you can still send reminders by hand.
• Daily summary: while manual invoices are overdue, you receive an email each morning: how many, how many with an overdue notice, which letters were not delivered, total outstanding, with links to each invoice (can be switched off in the settings).

The detail page lists all reminder letters with date, deadline, fee, delivery and PDF; if the email of the latest letter did not go out, send it again there — as long as the amount outstanding still matches the letter. In the overview each invoice shows its level, and the Reminded (open) filter lists all open invoices with a reminder letter. Reminder letters have no number range and are archived with their fingerprint.

DATEV export for your tax adviser

Under Invoices → Overview → DATEV export you as the owner download your outgoing invoices as a DATEV booking batch — a CSV file in DATEV format that your tax adviser imports into DATEV accounting. It contains all issued documents with an invoice date in the chosen period: manual invoices and the automatic documents for bookings and vouchers, plus cancellation invoices and credit notes. Each document and tax rate becomes one booking (debtor to revenue account) with invoice number, invoice date, due date, service date and the recipient as booking text; cancellations and credit notes are on the credit side and name the original invoice (document info). Payments are not included — your tax adviser books them from the bank account. Vouchers: selling a multi-purpose voucher (0 %) is not yet revenue but a liability — it goes to an account of its own without a default, named by your tax adviser; a single-purpose voucher (with a tax rate) stays revenue at its rate. If an invoice redeems a voucher, the booking text names the amount (“Gutschein 50,00”) and the preview marks it; your tax adviser rebooks the offset (release of the liability or the single-purpose share already taxed).

First enter the consultant number and client number under Settings → Invoicing → DATEV (both are in your tax adviser's documents), plus the start of the financial year, the chart of accounts SKR03 or SKR04 and the account length (usually 4). Debtors: either one collective account (default 10000) or an account of its own for each customer in the register (default 10001 for K-0001, 10042 for K-0042); documents without a register customer — such as the automatic ones — always go to the collective account. Revenue accounts: an account is preset for each tax rate and for small businesses, reverse charge and intra-Community supply (SKR03: 8400, 8300, 8100, 8195, 8336, 8125; SKR04: 4400, 4300, 4100, 4185, 4336, 4125). There is no default for the Austrian rates — agree those with your tax adviser. If your documents contain another rate (such as 10.7 %) or another country, a row of its own appears for it. An empty field means “default”; a BU key is only needed for accounts without automatic tax. Lock (default: yes) locks the batch when it is imported. Agree accounts, debtors and locking with your tax adviser once.

To export, choose a period — last month, last quarter, the current financial year or a free range. Only completed days count (up to yesterday), and a period must not cross a financial year (the file shows the document date without the year) — then export twice. The preview shows the totals per revenue account and every booking, exactly as in the file; if an account is missing for a tax rate, the tax rates of a document do not add up to its amount or an invoice number starts with an arithmetic sign, the preview says so and there is no file. If the stored tax of a document differs by a cent from what the automatic account calculates from the gross amount, the preview lists it as a notice — the file is still created and your tax adviser checks the spot. Every download is logged (when, who, period, number of bookings, balance, fingerprint of the file) — the log is on the export page and below the overview. VidiReserve checks the file format, not the bookkeeping: which accounts are right is up to your tax adviser.

Revenue account and cost centre per item: In an item you can enter its own revenue account (digits only, as many as the account length) and a cost centre (KOST1, up to 8 characters) under “Accounting (DATEV)”. The revenue account must match the item's tax rate (automatic account 8400 = 19 %, 8300 = 7 %). When issuing, the invoice takes both over for every line with this item — later changes to the item do not change issued invoices; cancellation and credit note take over the invoice's values. In the export VidiReserve books one line per document, tax rate, revenue account and cost centre; the total per tax rate stays exactly the invoice's (a rounding cent goes to the largest line). The item account only applies to the normal tax rates: for small businesses, reverse charge, intra-Community supply and the sale of a multi-purpose voucher the case's account from the settings stays (it carries the return to the tax office), the cost centre still applies. The BU key always comes from the case. If you later change the account length, the export reports an item account that no longer fits, with the invoice number.

VAT accounts: The file contains no tax account — DATEV books the VAT from the automatic account (8400 → 1776) or from the BU key. If your tax adviser changes the assignment, that happens in DATEV itself. The DATEV settings show the standard assignment of the chosen chart for each case (SKR03: 19 % → 1776, 7 % → 1771; SKR04: 19 % → 3806, 7 % → 3801) for information only.

For event providers

The add-on works the same way for event providers — in your vocabulary: where this help says “guest”, your back office says participant (for bookings) or contact (in contact management). So you find Add as invoice customer on the contact and on a booking with a billing address.

A typical case is the invoice to a company that books a course, a workshop or an event for several participants: create the company as a customer and charge the places with the unit person (template “Course fee”). The automatic attendee invoices for paid bookings are not affected (see Attendee invoices & online payment) — do not write an additional manual invoice for the same service.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need the customer's address for small amounts? No. Up to and including 250 € gross a small-amount invoice (§ 33 UStDV) without the customer's name and address is enough; above that VidiReserve asks for both before issuing. Exception: for reverse charge and intra-Community supply the relief does not apply — then every document needs the full address. Small-amount invoices are also exempt from the e-invoicing obligation.

I am a small business — what changes? Select the small business scheme (§ 19 UStG) in your invoicing profile. All lines then carry 0 %, there is no tax rate to choose, and instead of VAT the invoice shows the note on § 19 UStG. Small businesses do not have to issue e-invoices (they must still be able to receive them); the ZUGFeRD data is part of the PDF anyway — it does no harm.

What is a Leitweg-ID? The identifier under which German public-sector clients (federal, state and local authorities) accept e-invoices. You get it from the client, usually with the order. Create the authority as a company in the register (an XRechnung is only created for company customers) and enter the Leitweg-ID there; it then appears as the buyer reference on every invoice to them. Public-sector clients usually expect an XRechnung: download it on the invoice's detail page and submit it the way the client asks for (often an invoice portal).

What do Gmail, Outlook and the like do with the ZUGFeRD invoice? They show a perfectly normal PDF. The machine-readable data is invisibly embedded and stays intact as long as the file is forwarded or saved unchanged; some PDF programs show it as an attachment of the PDF file. If the PDF is printed and scanned again or recreated via “Print to PDF”, the data is lost — so always forward the original file.

Why do my manual invoices sit between the booking documents? Manual invoices, cancellation invoices and credit notes get their number from the same number sequence as the automatic documents for bookings and vouchers (prefix and year from the invoicing profile). This keeps your invoice numbers consecutive and without gaps. Quotes and order confirmations have sequences of their own (for example A-2026-0001) and do not touch the invoice numbers.

An issued invoice contains a mistake — how do I correct it? You do not change an issued invoice. For a corrected invoice cancel the invoice on its detail page, create a new draft with Copy, correct it and issue it again. If you only charged too much, a credit note for the difference is enough. A draft you can simply edit.

Privacy

The customer register contains personal data of your customers. VidiReserve processes it on your behalf; this is governed by the data processing agreement (DPA) with us. Only store what you need for quotes and invoices — the note is internal and never appears on a document.

A customer that no document and no draft refers to yet can be removed with Delete permanently (two steps, edit permission only). If documents refer to the customer, the record stays and can only be deactivated: invoices must be kept in Germany for eight years (in Austria seven, in Switzerland ten), and the details on an issued document do not change. Deactivated customers no longer appear in the list of active customers.