Export for the tax audit
Export documents, payments, supplier invoices and the related master data of a period for data provision to the tax auditor (GoBD, Z3).
During a tax audit, the German tax office may require you to hand over the tax-relevant data on a data medium (section 147 (6) AO, "Z3 access" under GoBD). The DATEV export only covers the postings – with the Export for the tax audit the auditor additionally receives the documents with all lines and the master data from allverto in a format that the audit software IDEA reads directly. You'll find it under Finance → DATEV export, tab Tax audit.
Before you start
- Owners, Administration and Accounting may export (permission Create export for the tax audit, see Users and roles). Without this permission the tab is hidden.
- Clarify the audit period with the auditor or your tax advisor, and whether the document PDFs are needed.
- You hand over the POS data separately as a DSFinV-K export from the POS (see TSE export and ELSTER notification).
Step by step
- Open Finance → DATEV export and switch to the Tax audit tab.
- Choose the Period (document date) – the previous year is preselected. If you run several companies, choose the Company next to it.
- Check the number of records per table.
- Tick Include document PDFs if needed. This makes the file considerably larger (at most 300 MB of document files per export – otherwise split the period).
- Click Download export (ZIP) and give the file to the auditor – ideally on an encrypted USB stick or via the channel named by the tax office.
What the file contains
The ZIP contains one CSV file per table (UTF-8, semicolon, dot as decimal separator) and an index.xml in the description standard for data provision (GDPdU). The index.xml describes columns, data types and keys – IDEA uses it to read all tables without further settings.
| Table | Content |
|---|---|
| Documents | Invoices, credit notes and cancellations with document date, customer, tax type, currency, exchange rate, net/tax/gross (also in euros), status and checksum of the archived PDF |
| Document lines | All lines of the documents with article number, quantity, unit price, tax rate and amounts |
| Payments | Payments, cash discounts, write-offs and refunds on sales documents in the period |
| Supplier invoices | Supplier invoices with supplier, amounts, status, posting status and cancellation |
| Supplier invoice lines | Split by tax rate, G/L account and cost centre |
| Supplier payments | Payments, cash discounts and write-offs on supplier invoices in the period |
| Customers, Suppliers, Articles | Only the master data that appears in the documents and payments of the period |
With Include document PDFs, the ZIP also contains the folders Belege (archived PDFs, unchanged as issued) and Eingangsrechnungen (uploaded supplier invoice files).
Log
Every export is logged with time, period, company, number of records and files, user, file name and checksum (SHA-256). The list Previous exports for the tax audit is shown below the export; there is also an entry in the change log.
Frequently asked questions
Isn't the DATEV export enough?
The DATEV export contains posting records. The audit may also request the data of the upstream systems – documents with lines, payments and master data as recorded in allverto. That is exactly what this export contains.
Does the file contain personal data?
Yes: names and addresses of the customers and suppliers that appear in the period. Only hand over the file when the audit requests it, and delete copies as soon as they are no longer needed.
Why are supplier invoices missing when exporting a company?
Supplier invoices belong to the default company. If you choose another company, the export only contains its sales documents and payments.