Check and approve incoming invoices and hand them over to DATEV

How an incoming invoice runs through kanbau

For a property developer, an incoming invoice is usually a subcontractor's progress invoice under a purchase contract. kanbau takes it in five steps from receipt to the hand-over to financial accounting. Every invoice belongs to a project; with a contract it follows the contract's cost group and, once posted, appears in the project's cost overview.

123456

• Receipt Mailbox, upload or e-invoice.
• Capture Data pre-filled, you confirm.
• Assign Project, purchase contract and sender.
• Check and approve Status checked, workflow and external review.
• Instruct payment SEPA file or online transfer.
• Post Booking journal to DATEV.

1. The invoice arrives and is captured

Invoices reach kanbau via the mailbox, as an upload, from a bank transaction or via CSV import. E-invoices in XRechnung (UBL and CII) and ZUGFeRD/Factur-X format are read directly; PDF invoices and scans are recognised by AI. Document number, document and due date, amounts, VAT rate, sender, project and a discount amount are then pre-filled. kanbau matches the sender with your addresses by name, e-mail and town, otherwise by IBAN, and warns if the document number has already been recorded. You check the suggestions and create the invoice. Invoice recognition and e-invoice import are billed by usage.

2. Assigned to the purchase contract and calculated cumulatively

When you select the purchase contract, the invoice takes over sender, project, VAT rate, the reverse-charge setting (§13b of the German VAT Act) and the contractual deductions. The invoice sheet shows main order, posted change orders, total order, performance level and remaining order value.

Progress invoices are calculated cumulatively: each instalment is calculated over all work checked so far under the contract, less what earlier instalments have already invoiced. With the standard cumulation, the subcontractor states the work of this instalment and kanbau adds the instalments checked so far. With "by performance level", the invoice states the total work to date. The types "single invoice despite contract", "advance payment" and "warranty" cover invoices outside the chain. You mark the final invoice on the invoice itself.

• Performance to date: €226,100 checked work from instalments 1 to 3, after retentions.
• Previously invoiced: €135,660 total after deductions of instalments 1 and 2.
• This instalment: €90,440 the difference, before discount.

3. Deductions down to the payment amount

The calculation starts with the document total; the checked total is what you accept after review. Rebate and defect retentions are deducted, then the contractual deductions: standard deduction, insurance, security retention and warranty retention. The security retention secures performance of the contract and usually applies to every instalment except the final invoice; the warranty retention usually applies only to the final invoice. Manual deductions, offset advance payments and refunds are added. The early-payment discount follows the payment terms, with the deadline counted from the date of receipt; a fixed amount is possible. Construction withholding tax is only deducted if no valid exemption certificate exists; the exemption can be checked online with the Federal Central Tax Office (Advanced). For reverse-charge invoices the payment amount is net. Offsetting against other incoming invoices and posted dunning fees complete the calculation.

• Checked total, instalments 1 to 3: €238,000 cumulative checked total.
• Security retention: − €11,900 from the purchase contract.
• Previously invoiced: − €135,660 instalments 1 and 2 after deductions.
• Early-payment discount: − €1,808.80 when paid within the deadline.
• Payment amount: €88,631.20 due on the payment date.

4. Review and approval in the workflow

An incoming invoice moves through the statuses open, checked and posted. Multi-step approvals are set up as workflows, for example check invoice, check bank details and instruct payment; rules can refer to the amount. Site managers or architects review via link without a kanbau account: up to ten external reviewers per invoice, with a deadline and optionally with a stamp (Advanced). Their result is recorded in the invoice's review history. Before posting, kanbau checks the mandatory fields defined in your company settings.

5. Pay, post and hand over to DATEV

Instructing payment creates a SEPA file, also collectively for several invoices, or executes an online transfer. Retrieved bank transactions are matched to the invoice. kanbau suggests the account assignment from the contract, the address, the project or the sender's last invoice. Posted documents go into the booking journal, which you hand over to DATEV, the accounting standard used by most German tax advisors. Open amounts appear on their due date in the cash flow planning, paid amounts as actuals. Recurring costs are captured as recurring invoices (Advanced).

Book a demo