GoBD

GoBD stands for Grundsätze zur ordnungsmäßigen Führung und Aufbewahrung von Büchern, Aufzeichnungen und Unterlagen in elektronischer Form sowie zum Datenzugriff. It is the German tax authority's principles for keeping books, records, and documents — particularly in electronic form. Every German watch dealer's bookkeeping is judged against these principles in a tax audit.

What GoBD requires

The five core principles, applied to a watch-dealing business:

• Completeness (Vollständigkeit). Every business transaction must be recorded — purchases, sales, trade-ins, consignments, refunds.
• Correctness (Richtigkeit). Records must accurately reflect what happened: correct dates, amounts, parties, tax treatment.
• Timely recording (Zeitgerechtheit). Transactions must be entered without unreasonable delay. Cash transactions go into a daily Kassenbuch; other transactions within 10 days is the typical bound.
• Order (Ordnung). Documents must be organised so a tax auditor can find any transaction quickly.
• Unalterability (Unveränderbarkeit). Once a transaction is recorded, it cannot be silently edited. Corrections happen through new, dated entries that reference the original.

Electronic specifics

For invoicing and bookkeeping software, GoBD imposes:

• Change history. Every edit to a record must be logged with timestamp and the user who made it.
• Read-only archives. Invoices, both received and issued, must be archived in their original form for 10 years. PDFs and E-Rechnung XML files must remain readable without dependency on outdated software.
• Audit data export. The system must be able to export records in a tax-auditor-readable format (the IDEA format or CSV per GDPdU specification).
• Documentation (Verfahrensdokumentation). A written description of how the bookkeeping works, kept up to date.

Common GoBD violations

In a tax audit, the typical findings against watch dealers include:

• Cash entries posted weeks late into the Kassenbuch, with no explanation for the gap.
• PDF invoices edited after issuance without a corresponding correction entry.
• Missing receipts for cash inflow (e.g., a private buyer paid cash for a watch and the dealer recorded the sale only when banking the cash days later).
• No written process documentation describing how invoicing and bookkeeping work in the business.

Each of these can lead to estimated taxation (Schätzung) by the auditor, which is generally unfavourable to the dealer.

Practical implications

A watch dealer satisfies GoBD when:

• All sales and purchases are recorded the day they happen (or daily for cash).
• The invoicing system maintains a tamper-evident audit trail.
• Documents are archived in original format for 10 years.
• A written Verfahrensdokumentation exists.

Related: e-rechnung, kassenbuch, differenzbesteuerung, zugferd.