What XRechnung contains
XRechnung carries invoice data as structured XML rather than as a visual PDF. The document normally identifies the seller, buyer, invoice number, dates, payment information, tax categories, totals, and invoice lines. The receiving system validates both the XML schema and business rules before accepting it.
A PDF may be useful for human review, but a PDF alone is not a substitute for the structured invoice required by the receiving workflow.
Identifiers that need attention
The most common implementation failures are not caused by XML syntax alone. They are caused by missing or incorrect business identifiers. Check these values before conversion or submission:
- Buyer endpoint and participant identifiers use the correct scheme and value.
- The buyer reference or routing reference matches the recipient's instructions.
- Seller and buyer legal names, addresses, and tax identifiers are complete.
- Payment means, account identifiers, due dates, and payment terms agree with the commercial document.
- Tax categories, tax rates, exemptions, and taxable amounts reconcile with invoice totals.
Validation is more than well-formed XML
A parser can accept a well-formed XML document that a receiving system still rejects. A practical validation sequence is:
- Parse the XML and confirm the expected namespaces and document type.
- Validate the document against the applicable schema and rule set.
- Check mandatory business terms, code lists, identifiers, dates, and decimal precision.
- Reconcile line totals, tax subtotals, document totals, and payable amount.
- Submit a representative test invoice through the intended recipient channel.
Requirements can change by version and recipient. Treat this page as implementation guidance, not as a legal determination or a replacement for the current rules published by the relevant German authority.
How this converter helps
Invoice Converter can transform supported source formats into structured outputs, preserve the available supplier, buyer, tax, and line-item data, and produce a readable PDF where the selected conversion path supports it. The result still depends on the completeness and correctness of the source invoice.
Before sending a converted file, compare the output with the original invoice and run it through the validator used by the receiving system. Conversion does not automatically create information that was absent from the source file.