What is the cost of Ouhud e-invoice?

The timeline from which your needs arise

The transitional regulations are outlined in § 27 Abs. 38 UStG, the definition of the e-invoice and the issuance obligation in § 14 UStG. The European standard series EN 16931 is decisive; XRechnung and ZUGFeRD from version 2.0.1 comply with it – the MINIMUM and BASIC-WL profiles do not.

What you may not need to purchase at all

Small businesses. Invoices for sales that are tax-exempt under § 19 Abs. 1 UStG may always be transmitted as other invoices – for example, as a PDF – according to § 34a UStDV. The obligation to be able to receive e-invoices does not disappear.

Those who already have an invoicing program. Many accounting and inventory management systems now generate and read the formats. A second product alongside causes duplicate master data maintenance – this is more expensive than any license.

Those who write few invoices. For a handful of outgoing invoices per month, a simple generator is sufficient; the receiving side can be created with a dedicated mailbox and a display option.

Common pricing models in the market

The fourth model is often overlooked and is often the most economical in practice: Instead of replacing the inventory management system, a component is added that generates the format from the existing data and checks it against the standard.

The costs that are not included in the software

Master data. The first validation reveals everything at once: missing country codes, inconsistent units, incorrect tax identifiers, missing routing identification numbers for public clients. This cleanup work is the actual effort of the transition.

Archiving. Invoices must be kept for eight years (§ 14b Abs. 1 UStG). The structured data set is what must be retained, not the document image. If someone only stores the PDF with ZUGFeRD and loses the embedded XML, they have destroyed the original – this is the most expensive and least noticeable mistake of the entire transition.

Process documentation. The GoBD requires a traceable description of the process. This is work, but not software.

What to measure an offer against

1. Are both directions covered – receipt and sending?
2. Is incoming data thoroughly validated and errors reported immediately?
3. Is the original archived in a revision-safe manner, not just the visible format?
4. Are XRechnung and ZUGFeRD covered from profile EN 16931?
5. What happens to the archive upon termination? Eight years is longer than most contract durations.

Point 5 is the one that is most often missing and has the longest-lasting effects.

This text does not replace tax advice.