If your accountant in Germany works with DATEV, sooner or later they will ask for a Shopify DATEV export: booking data they can import directly instead of entering every invoice by hand. This guide explains what your accountant needs, what booking batch, EXTF and SKR03 mean, and what the DATEV export in Kurswacht Invoice can and cannot do.

General overview, not tax or legal advice. Check individual cases with your accountant.

What your accountant needs

For every period, your accountant needs two things:

  • Documents: the invoices and credit notes themselves, for example as PDFs. They support every booking.
  • Booking data: which amount at which VAT rate goes to which account, with date and document number.

With PDFs only, your accountant enters the bookings themselves. With a DATEV export, they import the booking data and get the documents with it.

What is a DATEV booking batch (EXTF)?

The DATEV format is a text file (CSV) that DATEV software reads. A booking batch (Buchungsstapel) contains bookings, one per line: amount, debit or credit, account and offsetting account, document date, document number and booking text. The EXTF marker in the file header shows that the file comes from a program other than DATEV. The header also holds the consultant and client number, the start of the fiscal year, the account length and the period. That is how DATEV assigns the data to the right client.

SKR03 or SKR04?

A chart of accounts defines which account number stands for what. DATEV has two standard charts: SKR03 orders accounts by business processes, SKR04 by the structure of the balance sheet and profit and loss statement. The same revenue therefore lands on different accounts – 19% revenue, for example, on 8400 in SKR03 and on 4400 in SKR04. Your accountant tells you which chart you use.

Consultant number, client number and accounts

  • Consultant number: your accounting firm’s number at DATEV.
  • Client number: your number as a client of the firm.
  • Debtor account: many shops book all customers through one collective debtor instead of an account per customer.
  • Revenue accounts: they separate revenue by tax case, such as 19%, 7%, export or intra-community supply.

Your accountant gives you the consultant and client number. Change the accounts only if they ask.

How the DATEV export in Kurswacht Invoice works

Set it up once under Settings › DATEV export:

  1. Enter the consultant number and client number.
  2. Choose the chart of accounts SKR03 or SKR04, the account length (usually 4) and the month your fiscal year starts.
  3. Check the debtor account (collective debtor): empty means 10000.
  4. Leave the revenue accounts empty to use the DATEV automatic accounts for 19%, 7%, export, intra-community supply and tax-free revenue under § 4 No. 8 ff. UStG. Small-business revenue (§ 19 UStG) and other 0% revenue have no default account: enter your accountant’s account as soon as such documents occur.
  5. Switch on I use the OSS procedure if you sell to consumers in other EU countries at their VAT rates. These sales then go to the OSS revenue account, with OSS tax key, country of delivery and VAT rate.

Then pick the period under Invoices › Export, for example Previous month, and download the DATEV export (booking batch + documents) under Download now. The ZIP file contains the booking batch with all invoices and credit notes of the period plus the PDF documents, named after the document number. Invoices without VAT to businesses in other EU countries are booked to the intra-community supply account. You hand the ZIP file to your accountant, who imports the booking batch into DATEV.

Limits of the DATEV export

  • Only for sellers based in Germany with documents in euro.
  • The period must lie within one fiscal year and one calendar year.
  • No online connection: there is no direct link to DATEV, for example to DATEV Unternehmen online. Your accountant imports the file.
  • Only invoices and credit notes from the app: incoming payments, payouts and fees of your payment providers are not in the booking batch; your accountant books them separately. Orders you invoiced elsewhere are not included either.
  • Stops instead of guessing: if, for example, an account for a tax case is missing, the export stops and tells you why.
  • OSS return separately: the totals for your OSS return come from a separate export, the OSS summary (CSV) – per country of delivery and VAT rate, credit notes deducted. You file the return yourself; the app does not monitor the threshold. More on OSS in reverse charge in Shopify.

Without DATEV: PDF/XML package and CSV

If your business is not based in Germany, you invoice in other currencies or your accountant does not use DATEV, use the monthly export: the PDF/XML package contains the PDFs, the e-invoices (XML), the validation reports and an overview list; the CSV lists all documents of the period. Many accounting programs read the e-invoice (ZUGFeRD) straight from the PDF.

If you want documents transferred directly into accounting software, you need an app with a connection. The market overview shows which apps offer one.

Install Kurswacht Invoice

Kurswacht Invoice is available on the Shopify App Store. The Free plan includes 25 documents a month, and the DATEV export, like every feature, is included in every plan. Questions about your shop or your accounts? Write to us – you get an answer from the app’s developer.

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