Finance, tax & compliance
How this is scored
Whether the ERP keeps books a tax adviser and an auditor accept: general and subledgers, VAT per country, GoBD-compliant posting and archiving, e-invoices sent and received (XRechnung, ZUGFeRD), payments and dunning, and a DATEV export or a documented hand-over to the accountant.
0 — No accounting at all; invoices leave as PDFs and the books are kept somewhere else by hand.
3 — Invoices and credit notes are created in the system, but there is no ledger, no stated GoBD compliance and no export the accountant can import.
5 — Invoices, open items and payments in the system with a DATEV or accounting export, VAT rates per item, dunning, and e-invoices in XRechnung or ZUGFeRD format sent to customers.
8 — Full financial accounting or a live-synchronised one: general, receivables and payables ledgers, incoming e-invoices read and matched to purchase orders, bank feeds with payment matching, OSS and reverse-charge VAT, GoBD compliance stated with a procedure documentation, and several companies in one tenant.
10 — The money side closes inside the system: an auditor's GoBD or IDW PS 880 attestation published, consolidation and intercompany postings across entities, fixed assets and cost accounting, every posting traceable to the order, goods movement and user behind it, and period close with locked periods documented.
The Head of Finance
Invoices leave as e-invoices in ZUGFeRD and XML, incoming ones are read in ZUGFeRD, XRechnung, XML and PDF with the booking prepared for release, and a one-click DATEV export covering invoices, credit notes, liabilities and accounts is exactly the hand-over my tax adviser wants. But the books close elsewhere: the vendor itself states that BWA, Saldenliste and UStVA directly from Xentral are a long-term goal, direct booking is only planned in limited scope, the immutable journal is marked as coming soon, and we found no public information on a GoBD procedure documentation or several companies in one tenant. 8 9 4 12