Electronic Invoice in ZUGFeRD Format
For electronic invoices, the ZUGFeRD format has become established in many industries. The standard supports uniform and automatable processing for companies, customers, and tax advisors.
ZUGFeRD 2.x aligns with the European standard EN 16931 and is therefore relevant for public administration requirements and modern e-invoicing processes.
The ZUGFeRD format
ZUGFeRD stands for "Central User Guide of the Forum for Electronic Invoicing Germany." It combines human-readable PDF data with machine-readable XML data in one unified e-invoice format.
Benefits of ZUGFeRD
- standardized, cross-industry format
- legally compliant archiving with PDF/A-3
- digital transmission via email, download, and more
- more efficient processes for validation, approval, and payment
Structure of a ZUGFeRD invoice
A ZUGFeRD invoice contains:
- a visual PDF representation for humans
- structured XML data for machines
Depending on the process, work can focus either on the PDF or on the XML data.
ZUGFeRD 2.x also supports related standards such as XRechnung and Factur-X.
PDF as a standard format for invoice exchange
PDF is a platform-independent format for digital document exchange. With PDF/A-3, an established standard is available for long-term archiving and for combining visual invoice content with XML data.
Process ZUGFeRD XML with webPDF
webPDF supports embedding XML data according to ZUGFeRD 1.0 and 2.x during PDF/A conversion.
Before embedding, XML data is validated against the corresponding schema. If validation succeeds, the output is created as a ZUGFeRD-compliant PDF/A-3 file.
In addition, scanned paper invoices can be prepared via OCR and then enriched with ZUGFeRD XML.
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