Invoices according to ZUGFeRD Standard (XRechnung)

additional feature

With the additional feature E-Invoice Templates, necessary templates and scripts are implemented, with which e-invoices (ZUGfERD and XRechnungen) can be created at the push of a button. All information can be found in the corresponding Article .

E-invoice according to ZUGFeRD Standard

With Vertec, E-Invoices can be created according to the Zugferd standard . For this purpose, the XML metadata is generated in the code of the Office Reports and passed to the report mechanism, which integrates the metadata into the PDF.

There is a method for this in the Office reports

metadata_zugferd(context)

This returns a tuple consisting of :

• profilename : Name of the train profile. This must either be the name of a built-in profile (see next section) or return a schema definition as the 3rd argument. Otherwise, the report will report an error on execution.
• data : ZUGFeRD XML Data. The XML document that represents the ZUGFeRD data for the invoice.
• schema: Optional. For non-built-in profiles, an XML data string can be passed here, which defines the schema of the profile to be used.
  • As of Vertec 6.4.0.16, a version number can be specified as a string instead of the user-defined XMP structure for schema. Valid values are:
    • 2.0.1 (default)
    • 2.1.1
    Together with the profile name, Vertec creates the appropriate XMP schema of the corresponding ZUGFeRD version. If the version is missing, the default value is 2.0.1. This is only relevant for built-in profiles. It is still possible to pass a user-defined XMP schema instead of the version.

The following ZUGFeRD profiles are supported as built-in profiles:

• EXTENDED
• EN 16931 (COMFORT, XRechnung)
• BASIC
• BASIC WL
• MINIMUM

The standard report invoice with list of services included includes a corresponding example code for the profile EN 16931.

Customers who wish to use their invoices according to the ZUGFeRD standard or as X-invoices must adapt this code according to the requirements of their invoice recipients.

Implementation with built-in schema

def metadata_zugferd(context):

First, the template is created. The XML is created in Python with Vertec’s built-in Template Engine. In XML, variables containing the numbers from Vertec can be used. The XML is then created with the method vtcapp.rendertemplate() .

    zugferd_template = u"""<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <rsm:CrossIndustryInvoice xmlns:a="urn:un:unece:uncefact:data:standard:QualifiedDataType:100"..>
        <rsm:ExchangedDocumentContext>
            <ram:GuidelineSpecifiedDocumentContextParameter>
                <ram:ID>urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017</ram:ID>
            </ram:GuidelineSpecifiedDocumentContextParameter>

        ..."""
    rechnung = context.rootlist[0]

    # Render the transferred template for ZUFGeRD
    zugferdxml = vtcapp.rendertemplate(zugferd_template, rechnung=rechnung)

The method returns the schema and the finished XML, which is integrated into the PDF by the report mechanism.

As ZUGFeRD 2.0 (default):

    return ("EN 16931", zugferdxml)

As ZUGFeRD 2.1 (from version 6.4.0.16):

    return ("EN 16931", zugferdxml, "2.1.1")

Implementation with no built-in schema

def metadata_zugferd(context):

First, the template is created. The XML is created in Python with Vertec’s built-in Template Engine. In XML, variables containing the numbers from Vertec can be used. The XML is then created with the method vtcapp.rendertemplate() .

    zugferd_template = u"""<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <rsm:CrossIndustryInvoice xmlns:a="urn:un:unece:uncefact:data:standard:QualifiedDataType:100"..>
        <rsm:ExchangedDocumentContext>
            <ram:GuidelineSpecifiedDocumentContextParameter>
                <ram:ID>urn:cen.eu:en16931:2017</ram:ID>
            </ram:GuidelineSpecifiedDocumentContextParameter>

        ..."""
    rechnung = context.rootlist[0]

    # Render the transferred template for ZUFGeRD
    zugferdxml = vtcapp.rendertemplate(zugferd_template, rechnung=rechnung)

In addition, the schema is passed as XML:

    schema = u"""<?xpacket begin="?" id="W5M0MpCehiHzreSzNTczkc9d"?>
    <x:xmpmeta xmlns:x="adobe:ns:meta/">
      <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">
        <rdf:Description xmlns:pdfaid="http://www.aiim.org/pdfa/ns/id/" rdf:about="">
    ..."""

The method returns the finished XML as well as the schema, which is integrated into the PDF by the report mechanism.

    return ("", zugferdxml, Schema)

More information about ZUGFeRD can be found on the official FeRD website.