Have you just set yourself up in the trade and are about to write your first invoice to a customer? You've already written hundreds of invoices and just want to make sure that you've thought of everything this time too? Then you've come to the right place! We have summarized the most important information about creating an invoice in the craft sector.
What do you have to include on your bill?
After you have successfully completed your project, you will of course want to charge your customer for your work. So that neither your customer nor the tax office can complain about anything, you must write certain mandatory information on your invoice.
You can already store a large part of the mandatory information in letterhead
Mandatory information in the invoice:
- Your customer's name and address
- Your company's name and address
- Invoice creation date
- Consecutive invoice number (note GoBD compliance!)
- Your tax number or sales tax ID
- Information about the product and/or service (quantity, type, scope, time)
- Invoice amount (net amount, tax rate, tax amount and gross amount)
Voluntary but useful additional information:
In addition to the mandatory information required by the tax office and your customers, it makes sense to fill your invoice with other voluntary information. In this way, you can be sure that you get your money as quickly as possible and that your customers know exactly how they should pay.
- Your contact details such as telephone number and email address
- Your bank details
- A payment period
- An advance invoice - Flat rate or cumulative
- Your company logo
- A short letter to your customer
Example - Clear material calculation including 19% VAT
In the footer, you can enter general information such as your bank details.
Special rules for small business owners
The small business regulation is intended to make bookkeeping easier for you as a small or newly founded company by not having to calculate sales tax and later pass it on to the tax office.
In practical terms, this means that you do not show any sales tax on your invoices and include a note in return. Example: “According to § 19 UStG in accordance with the small business regulation, no sales tax is calculated.” If you use craftsman software such as Plancraft, this is usually automatically taken into account.
Sending your invoices
How you send your invoices depends entirely on you and your customers. Whether it's a classic letter or an email, it doesn't matter to the tax office. In principle, however, you should always keep in mind what is more efficient and cheaper for you. Printing out your invoices and sending them by post may not cost you much time and money at the beginning, but these amounts add up over the course of your self-employment and can simply be avoided if you implement everything digitally.
Obligation to keep your invoices
As a company, you are required to keep your business records for a period of 10 years. It doesn't matter whether the documents are saved on paper or digitally.
In addition to the duration of storage, the GoBD is also important to you. This policy describes how to type and sort your records.
The background is that tax offices don't have to rummage through piles of unsorted and incomplete documents first, which is why you are obliged to store and label your invoices in a comprehensible, sorted, truthful, seamless and continuous manner.
And what does that mean for you in plain language?
Your invoices must be stored dry, clean and sorted. If your invoices are only stored locally on your computer, a hardware defect can have fatal consequences. We therefore recommend backing up your files to the cloud. We have the benefits of the cloud in the following article Summarized in more detail.
Clear recommendation from us: Plancraft craftsman software
With craftsman software like Plancraft, you can write invoices in no time at all, without fear of forgetting anything or failing to meet legal requirements. All mandatory information is automatically taken into account and you write your craftsman's invoices without errors. In addition, with the functions that exist today, Plancraft meets the GoBD standards.
And the best part: Our software is cloud-based. This allows you to process your invoices from any device anywhere you have the Internet and keep your documents safe. Try Plancraft for free today.
Summarized:
There are a few things you need to consider when creating and archiving your invoices, especially if you've just founded your own craft business or are taking over an existing business. In addition to meeting the requirements of the tax office, you want to make billing as easy as possible for your customers and all of this should cost as little time and money as possible.
As a first solution, invoice templates in Excel and Word can look attractive, but they do not solve the requirements of the tax office and do not protect you from errors. Special software can help you here, which thinks of everything for you, calculates the sales tax, sends out your invoices and also stores everything for you in the end.
In this way, the tax office and annoying office work cannot stand in the way of your success. Such software doesn't have to be expensive or complicated to help you focus on the real thing
We recommend using a Craftsman software. Good software makes it easier to write the invoice & automatically complies with legal requirements. This is how you easily create your invoices.
