Tax & Invoicing

DATEV

German cooperative providing accounting software (DATEV Kanzlei-Rechnungswesen, DATEV Mittelstand) used by the majority of German tax advisors. The DATEV CSV format (Buchungsstapel) is the standard import format for monthly bookkeeping data.

DATEV eG is a German cooperative founded in 1966 in Nürnberg. Its software is used by the majority of German tax advisors (Steuerberater) for client bookkeeping and tax filing. For watch dealers, DATEV's relevance is one specific thing: the format your tax advisor expects when you hand over monthly transaction data.

DATEV CSV (Buchungsstapel-Format)

The standard import format is the Buchungsstapel CSV, a semicolon-separated values file with a fixed column layout. Each row is a single bookkeeping entry (Buchung):

Umsatz (amount)
Soll/Haben-Kennzeichen (debit/credit indicator)
Konto (account number, typically a four- or five-digit SKR03 or SKR04 code)
Gegenkonto (counter-account)
Buchungstext (description)
Belegdatum (document date)
Belegnummer (document number)
and several optional columns

The format has specific requirements: encoding (Windows-1252), date format (DDMM), decimal separator (comma in DE locale), and a strict header structure. A wrongly-formatted CSV will fail to import.

DATEV products

The two main DATEV products that import Buchungsstapel CSVs are:

DATEV Kanzlei-Rechnungswesen: used by tax advisors for their clients' books.
DATEV Mittelstand: used by mid-sized companies for in-house accounting.

Smaller related products (DATEV Unternehmen Online) provide a web interface for clients to upload documents directly to their tax advisor.

What ChronoDesk emits

ChronoDesk generates a Buchungsstapel CSV monthly per workspace. The export covers:

Sales invoices (including Storno reversals).
Differenzbesteuerung margin-scheme sales (in their dedicated DATEV accounts).
Reverse Charge invoices.
Purchase records (Ankaufsrechnung).

The dealer sends the monthly file to their tax advisor; the advisor imports it into Kanzlei-Rechnungswesen with one click. No retyping, no PDF parsing.

Account number conventions

Most German watch dealers use SKR03 (small-business chart of accounts) or SKR04 (industry-neutral chart). The dealer's tax advisor confirms which chart is in use; ChronoDesk uses SKR03 by default.

Practical note

DATEV format compatibility is testable. A round-trip (export from ChronoDesk → import into DATEV → no errors) confirms compatibility for a given workspace's configuration. Differences in default accounts between SKR03 and SKR04 occasionally require a one-time mapping setup with the tax advisor.

Glossary entries are editorial reference, not legal, tax, or financial advice. See our disclaimer for the full notice.