GoBD data export

The GoBD data export lets companies operating in Germany provide an on-demand response to German tax authority requests. The export format is compliant and audit-ready for import to the tax inspector's software.

Who typically uses this report

Section 147 (6) of the Abgabenordnung (AO) or German Fiscal Code, allows tax inspectors to audit the data of electronic accounting systems digitally. To comply, companies must provide tax-relevant data to tax inspectors in a machine-readable format for machine evaluability in accordance with the Grundsätze zur ordnungsmäßigen Führung und Aufbewahrung von Büchern, Aufzeichnungen und Unterlagen in elektronischer Form sowie zum Datenzugriff (GoBD). The GoBD describes the principles for the proper management and storage of books, records, and documents in electronic form and for data access. The latest version of the GoBD was published on November 28, 2019 and is applicable for tax periods beginning January 1, 2020.

What’s in this report

The GoBD data export contains tax-relevant data or information that impacts the company's VAT, including master data, transactional data, cost accounting, and VAT data. The zipped folder generated is GoBD-compliant and ready for import into the tax inspector's software.

Multinational companies operating in Germany can create a separate chart of accounts for their German entities and use the reporting account filter to run the GoBD data export.

The GoBD data export includes the following files:

  • Tax relevant data in csv format - This includes a comprehensive set of data files for the user-defined tax audit period and reporting entity. Importing these files into approved third-party analysis software allows the tax inspector to sort and apply filters to the tax relevant data.

  • Index.xml - This file is similar to a table of contents and contains the names of the csv files and their structural information, such as column headers and field formats.

  • GoBD.dtd - This file describes the structure of the index.xml file.

The GoBD data export includes the following tax-relevant data csv files.

File name Description

apadjustment

 Accounts Payable adjustment

apadvance

 Accounts Payable advance

apbill

 Accounts Payable bill

appayment

 Accounts Payable payment

aradjustment

 Accounts Receivable adjustment

aradvance

 Accounts Receivable advance

arinvoice

 Accounts Receivable invoice

arpayment

 Accounts Receivable payment

baseaccount

 General Ledger account

customer

 Customer

glbudget

 General Ledger budget

gldetail

 General Ledger detail

gljournal

 General Ledger journal

potaxdetail

 Purchase input tax detail

sotaxdetail

 Sales output tax detail

taxrecord

 Tax record

vendor

 Vendor

Additional information or limitations

You must have the Deutsche Umsatzsteuer standard tax solution installed and configured at the company or entity level.

Users need the appropriate permissions to run the GoBD data export. Admin users can grant those permissions under Subscriptions > General Ledger > Reports > GoBD data export > Run.

Due to the requirements set by the German tax authority, you cannot customize or change the formatting of this report.