Create & check e-invoices
that also protect your money.
Compliance is mandatory. We also turn it into protection: every e-invoice according to EN 16931 (ZUGFeRD, Factur-X, XRechnung), validated with the official KoSIT validator, plus an IBAN fraud check that detects manipulated bank details before you pay. For non-technical users and developers. Pay-per-use or a monthly plan, no subscription required.
E-invoicing is mandatory, not optional
Since 2025, German businesses must be able to receive e-invoices. Mandatory issuing is being phased in until 2028. A PDF sent by email is not an e-invoice. If you do not switch, you risk rejected invoices, delayed payments and trouble with the tax office. We take care of it for you, whatever tool you work with.
No XML. No mapping. No programming.
For everyone who does not want to deal with technology. You provide the data the way you have it. We turn it into a validated e-invoice.
Paste it in, done. The AI maps it.
Copy in an Excel row, an email or loose notes. Our AI automatically recognises the customer, line items, quantities, prices and tax rate, even if it says "CustomerNo" instead of the technical term or "19 %" instead of a code. We then check the result strictly against EN 16931. No more fiddling with fields.
The optional AI mapping runs on Mistral AI (France), so processing stays within the EU. Your invoices are generated, checked and stored in Germany.
Excel in, invoices out
Upload Excel (.xlsx, .xls), LibreOffice (.ods) or CSV and get all ZUGFeRD PDFs back as a ZIP. Also works for single Excel invoices and existing e-invoices as XML (CII or XRechnung UBL). Ideal for clerks who create many invoices at once. No code at all, with a ready-made template to download.
Ready for Make and Zapier
Connect your tools with a "Webhook/HTTP" module, without your own server. A row goes in, a validated e-invoice comes out. Automate your invoicing in minutes.
Create. Check. Automate.
Created in 2 minutes
Fill in a form as usual. We deliver a finished ZUGFeRD PDF with embedded XML that your customer and every tax office accept. With logo, templates, real early-payment discounts and rebates, cancellation invoices, mandatory commercial register details and all tax cases (small businesses, reverse charge, intra-community supplies, exports, zero rate).
Checked at the push of a button
Received an invoice from someone else? Upload the file and see within seconds whether it complies with EN 16931. With the official KoSIT validator and an easy-to-understand list of errors.
Directly in your software
A lean REST API connects accounting, ERP or online shop. Invoice data automatically becomes a legally compliant e-invoice. Nobody has to click anything.
A PDF sent by email is not an e-invoice. We deliver the validated, machine-readable data record that your customer and the tax office actually accept.ZUGFeRD 2.x · Factur-X · XRechnung-checkable
More than compliance. Active protection for your money.
Features others do not offer. No AI hype, just tangible benefits. Fraud protection in both directions.
Multi-stage fraud check, not just the IBAN
When checking an incoming invoice, we compare the issuer's IBAN with your supplier history, check the VAT ID live against EU VIES and the recipient bank against the Bundesbank bank code register, match the name against the EU sanctions list and detect typical fraud patterns: new bank details shortly before a tight payment deadline, an imitated sender domain for invoices received by mailbox, or a PDF that was edited afterwards in Word instead of in the ERP. Then you see a red warning before you pay. Including your own block list for known fraudulent IBANs. We do not store the plain IBAN, only the encrypted comparison.
Tamper-proof invoices
Add a cryptographic seal and a QR code to your outgoing invoices. Your customer scans it and sees at once: genuine, unaltered and with the correct IBAN. This protects your customers against fake "invoices from you" with someone else's bank details; the public verification is free.
Corrections at a glance
Upload the original and the correction, and we show the changes like a version comparison. Green is new or cheaper, red is removed or old. Complaints are resolved in seconds instead of line by line.
Don't wait 30 days. Get your money faster.
An invoice is only good once it has been paid. That is why our work does not stop at the PDF.
Payment page & QR on every invoice
Every invoice automatically carries a GiroCode (scan with a banking app, everything pre-filled) and a "Pay now" link to a personal payment page in your design, with amount, IBAN and payment reference ready for a transfer without any typing. Fewer hurdles, faster payments.
From a friendly reminder to debt collection
Dunning levels with a selectable tone and transparently editable texts, default interest and the €40 flat fee calculated automatically under §§ 286/288 of the German Civil Code (BGB), dunning letters as PDF with your letterhead. Plus payment statistics with a customer traffic light and a debt-collection handover package (from Business).
Scan instead of typing
The EPC payment QR on every invoice automatically fills in payee, IBAN, amount and payment reference in your customer's banking app. No transposed digits, no queries and noticeably faster payments.
See when which money is coming in, and what to do now
Your invoices become a liquidity cockpit, without any extra data entry. No black-box AI score: every figure comes transparently from your own invoices.
Open receivables & due dates at a glance
What is open, what is overdue, grouped by the age of the receivable (aging). You see at once where money is stuck, instead of wading through lists.
Which customer pays reliably and which does not
A transparent score for every customer based on average payment delay, dunning rate and overdue amounts. When writing a new invoice, you see the risk right next to the recipient, before you deliver.
Expected payments and concrete recommendations
A cash-in preview shows which amounts to expect in the coming weeks, based on the due date plus the actual payment behaviour of each customer. Plus clear recommendations: what to send a reminder for now or hand over to debt collection.
Every figure is clickable and leads directly to the invoices behind it. A time series (DSO) shows whether your incoming payments improve over the months. And with one click you export everything as CSV or PDF, ready for your tax advisor or bank.
Your mailbox checks every invoice itself, before your accounting pays
The most expensive fraud scheme for small and mid-sized companies is the manipulated incoming invoice: the PDF looks genuine, but the bank details belong to fraudsters. Connect your mailbox, we take care of the rest.
Connect Outlook/IMAP, done
Connect a Microsoft 365 or IMAP mailbox with one click (read-only access). Every incoming e-invoice is checked automatically: KoSIT compliance, PDF-vs-XML manipulation, duplicates and the bank details against your supplier history. If anything looks suspicious: instant alert.
The bank checks when you transfer. We check on receipt.
Since October 2025, banks compare name and IBAN when you make a transfer (Verification of Payee). Good, but too late and too little: VoP does not detect that your known supplier has "suddenly changed accounts", no money-mule accounts, no manipulated XML data, no duplicates. We warn you days earlier, when the invoice arrives.
From alert to batch transfer
You mark checked invoices for payment and export them as a SEPA batch transfer (pain.001) for your online banking, only with checked payee IBANs. The IBAN vault with a four-eyes principle secures changes to master data. One prevented fraudulent transfer pays for the plan for years.
What a finished invoice looks like
One document, four strengths at a glance: compliant, validated, tamper-proof and paid in seconds.
Invoice RE-2026-014
14 Feb 2026
| Item | Qty | Unit price | Net |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assembly & installation | 8 h | 95.00 | 760.00 |
| Materials (flat rate) | 1 | 240.00 | 240.00 |
New: what we added recently
Features from the past weeks for invoices that need to do more in everyday business.
- Down payment, partial and final invoices. The final invoice deducts down payments already received, and VAT is shown only on the remaining amount.
- Foreign currency with ECB rate. The exchange rate comes from the ECB, either as a daily rate or as a monthly average, and the VAT is also shown in euro.
- Discounts and early payment discount. A discount as a percentage or as an amount, even two discounts on one invoice, and the early payment discount in structured form in the e-invoice.
- Invoices in English. The fixed texts in the e-invoice data (XML) are then in English as well.
- Word template in your own design. Your corporate design in Word, you change the labels for each language in your profile with one click, and a single template covers German and English.
- Several sender companies. Several companies in one account with a shared credit balance, activated on request.
- Bank account by customer country. For customers in countries of your choice, the invoice also shows a second bank account, in the PDF and in the e-invoice, and on the payment page with its own payment QR code.
For business owners, developers and software vendors
You write invoices, not code
Form, AI import or file import. We take care of format, XML and compliance. The result is exactly one file that is accepted everywhere.
Try it nowOne request, one finished e-invoice
A lean REST API for accounting, ERP or online shop, with invoice XML directly as the request body and file import via /v1/import. You will find the complete code example directly below this section.
For SaaS vendors to resell
Embed our invoice form via iframe or API in your own product, in your corporate design, without our brand. Or add the multi-stage fraud check as an API (/v1/check: KoSIT, IBAN history, VIES, sanctions list, fraud patterns) to your software, an endpoint no competitor offers. Ideal for document management, practice, association or industry software.
Connected in minutes
A single HTTP request is all it takes: your invoice data automatically becomes a validated e-invoice as a PDF.
curl -X POST https://sichere-erechnung.de/v1/generate \ -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ --data-binary @invoice.json -o invoice.pdf
Proven standards instead of flying blind
Every invoice is also a valid ZUGFeRD 2.x / Factur-X file, by default in the Comfort (EN 16931) profile, or Basic, Basic WL, Minimum or Extended on request. Generated as PDF/A-3 with embedded XML, checked against the official KoSIT validator, VAT ID verified live via EU VIES. So every invoice passes every check.
Fair prices, as a monthly plan or pay-per-use
Predictable with a plan (cancellable monthly) or flexible with credits that never expire. Your choice.
Unlimited invoices
Create e-invoices, send them by email, open items & dunning, flat rate.
+ Mailbox protection
Everything in Solo, plus up to 2 mailboxes with unlimited automatic incoming checks including IBAN fraud protection and full receivables management up to debt-collection handover.
For accounting teams
Up to 10 mailboxes, unlimited team users, priority support.
For tax advisory firms: fraud protection and input VAT protection for every client
Not just receiving, but securing
Anyone can receive incoming invoices today, but nobody checks them. We start where the money is lost: every incoming invoice is checked against the official KoSIT validator and examined for manipulated bank details (IBAN history per supplier, PDF-vs-XML comparison, block list). Every check comes with a check report (PDF) that documents the proof required by the BMF letter of 15 October 2025 for input VAT protection.
Clean handover: monthly export, DATEV documents, GoBD
The monthly export delivers all invoices as a ZIP (ZUGFeRD PDF and XML plus a totals list). The DATEV document transfer export (German) provides all document images with a structured index, ready for DATEV Belege online and Unternehmen online. For tax audits, the GoBD full export provides frozen originals with a checksum manifest and a process documentation template.
Terms for tax firms on request
For firms with many clients, we bundle checks, check reports and the DATEV export at terms for multiple clients, agreed individually. Unlike pure accounting packages, we do not charge for every outgoing invoice, but for the actual protection. Interested in a partnership for your firm with terms for multiple clients? Get in touch → You will find your referral link in your profile after registering.
Master data that thinks ahead
Customers, suppliers and your catalogue are maintained once and available in every channel: form, file import, AI and API.
One record per customer and supplier
Contact persons, multiple addresses and delivery addresses, payment terms and early-payment discount as defaults, a credit limit with a traffic light directly in the invoice form, group structures with a central invoice recipient. Also maintainable via CSV import and API (/v1/partners).
Line items and design from one source
Services with item number, price, unit and tax rate in the catalogue, available via autocomplete in every invoice. Your invoices in your own corporate design via a Word template, automatically created from an existing invoice if you wish.
VAT IDs and recipients under control
Your customers' stored VAT IDs are continuously checked against EU VIES, with an alert as soon as one becomes invalid. For incoming invoices, we also check whether the invoice is actually addressed to you before it goes into a payment run.
For your industry
Industry pages are currently available in German.
Trades & crafts
Get paid faster, without accounting overhead.
Freelancers & small businesses
Small business rule (§ 19 UStG) covered, no subscription required.
Associations
Traceable even when the treasurer changes.
Online retailers
Automate your invoice volume via REST API.
Property management
IBAN fraud protection for service provider invoices.
Frequently asked questions about e-invoicing
What is an e-invoice according to EN 16931?
An e-invoice is a structured data record (XML) in the European EN 16931 format that software can process automatically. ZUGFeRD/Factur-X also embeds this XML in a PDF/A-3, so the invoice is human-readable and machine-readable at the same time.
Is a normal PDF sent by email an e-invoice?
No. A plain PDF without embedded, structured XML does not count as an e-invoice under EN 16931. Only the machine-readable XML (for example ZUGFeRD or XRechnung) makes it a valid e-invoice.
When does e-invoicing become mandatory in Germany?
Since 1 January 2025, German businesses must be able to receive e-invoices. The obligation to issue them is being phased in until 2028, depending on company size.
What is the difference between ZUGFeRD, Factur-X and XRechnung?
ZUGFeRD (Germany) and Factur-X (France) are the same hybrid format: a PDF with embedded XML according to EN 16931. XRechnung is the purely structured XML format for public-sector clients. Our invoices are ZUGFeRD 2.x/Factur-X and can be checked against the KoSIT validator (including XRechnung).
Which ZUGFeRD profile should I choose?
For most invoices, Comfort (EN 16931) is the right choice: it is our default profile and practically every software accepts it. Basic and Basic WL are leaner variants with fewer optional fields; Basic WL also has no line items in the XML, which suits flat-rate or subscription invoices. Minimum is a pure booking message without line items; many systems and public authorities do not accept it as a full invoice. Extended suits more complex cases with several discounts or tax rates per line item. Invoices to public authorities (B2G) must be XRechnung. When you create an invoice, the form shows a short explanation for each profile.
How do I create an e-invoice without IT skills?
Using the web form, the AI import (paste an Excel row or text) or the file import (Excel, LibreOffice, CSV or an e-invoice as XML). You provide the data, we generate the validated ZUGFeRD PDF: no XML, no mapping, no programming.
How much does sichere-erechnung.de cost?
You pay per transaction in credits that never expire, or choose a monthly plan from €9 net (cancellable monthly). No subscription required and no base fee in the credit model. Creating an invoice costs 1 credit, a check including IBAN fraud protection 3 credits, the AI import 10 credits. Free credits let you start at no cost.
Is there an alternative to ZUGFeRD SaaS subscriptions?
Yes, that is exactly what the pricing model is built for: if you are looking for an alternative to the classic SaaS suite with a monthly subscription, you only pay per transaction here, with no base fee and no minimum term, and your credits do not expire. If you do not want a third-party web front end at all, use the REST API or the white-label embed and keep your own interface; your invoices can be exported in full at any time (PDF and XML), so there is no lock-in.
Are the invoices legally compliant and verifiable?
Yes. Every invoice is a PDF/A-3 with embedded CII XML according to EN 16931, meets the requirements of § 14 of the German VAT Act (UStG), is checked against the official KoSIT validator, and the VAT ID is verified live via EU VIES.
Are my e-invoices retained in line with GoBD?
The platform supports GoBD-compliant retention (the German rules for digital bookkeeping records): every e-invoice you create and every e-invoice received via your mailbox is frozen as an unaltered original (PDF and XML) with a SHA-256 checksum, and finalised invoices can no longer be changed. The full export gives you all records in machine-readable form, including an integrity manifest and a template for the process documentation required in a tax audit. For the statutory 10-year retention period, we recommend also storing the export in your own archive.
How do I protect my customers from fake invoices in my name?
With the authenticity seal: your outgoing invoice is cryptographically signed (Ed25519) and carries a QR code. Your customer scans it and immediately sees on a free public verification page whether the invoice is genuine and unaltered and whether the IBAN is correct. A fake "invoice from you" with someone else's bank details stands out at once. You can revoke the seal for cancellations or corrections.
Can my customers pay the invoice via QR code?
Yes. We automatically print a GiroCode (EPC QR code) on every invoice we generate. Your customer scans it with their banking app, and payee, IBAN, amount and payment reference (your invoice number) are pre-filled. No typing, no transposed digits, faster payment. It appears on EUR invoices with a valid IBAN and can be switched off in your profile.
Can several employees use the same account?
Yes, via team invitations (roles owner, admin, member). They share credits and data. Under "Team" you decide whether members see the entire account or only their own invoices and checks; owners and admins always see everything. Approvals can additionally be secured with a four-eyes principle.
How do my invoices get paid faster?
Every invoice automatically carries a GiroCode to scan and a "Pay now" link to a personal payment page with amount, IBAN and payment reference. You manage unpaid invoices under "Open items" with payment reminders and first and second dunning letters, fully automatically if you wish.
Does the e-invoicing software also show my liquidity?
Yes. The liquidity cockpit automatically analyses the invoices you have created: open and overdue receivables by age (aging), a transparent payment score for each customer, a forecast of expected incoming payments and concrete recommendations. Everything is calculated deterministically from your own invoice data, with no extra data entry and no black box. When you create a new invoice, you see the recipient's payment risk right next to the field. Every figure can be expanded down to the individual invoice, a time series (DSO) shows the trend, and the report can be exported as CSV and PDF.
Can I check an e-invoice I received for free?
Yes. Under "Check an e-invoice for free" you upload an invoice you received and see, without an account (only with your email address), whether it complies with EN 16931 and whether the visible bank details match the machine-readable data (3 checks per day). A free account adds supplier history, a block list, duplicate checks and mailbox automation.
Does the check report protect my input VAT deduction?
According to the German Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF) letter of 15 October 2025 (para. 35a), if you exercise due care you may rely on the technical result of a validation (format and business rules) by a suitable validation tool; the retained validation report serves as proof. That is exactly what our check report documents: for every incoming invoice you check, you can download a check report (PDF) that records the KoSIT validation according to EN 16931 and the IBAN check with the date. This protection does not cover errors in content (for example a wrong tax rate); the recipient remains responsible for checking those. More in our detailed guide (German). The report does not replace tax advice.
Switch today, relax tomorrow
From AI import to API. Bring your invoices up to the legal standard in 2 minutes.