“Just send me the DATEV export” is one of those sentences that sounds like half an hour of work and produces three follow-up questions. The reason: there is not one export but at least two different things that both go by that name.
1. What does “DATEV export” actually mean?
The posting batch
Finished postings with account, contra account, amount, tax key, document date and reference. This is what your accountant means when they say bookkeeping. It arrives as a file in a fixed format and gets imported.
The till records
The individual transactions in the tax authority format, signatures included. This is what an audit means. It is not bookkeeping but the evidence that the till was run properly.
Both are needed, but on different occasions and at different rhythms: the posting batch monthly, the till records on request — and then immediately.
2. What is in a posting batch?
A day’s trading typically becomes a manageable number of postings: revenue split by tax rate, payment methods split into cash and cashless, plus the special cases. Not every single receipt gets posted — that would be neither necessary nor sensible.
Which chart of accounts applies is your accountant’s call, not your till provider’s. Both common German charts are widespread in hospitality, and the account numbers differ. An export posted against the wrong chart is not half right, it is unusable.
3. Where does the DATEV export trip up in hospitality?
Takeaway versus eat-in
Two tax rates, and the mapping happens at the till, not in the books. If an item is set up wrongly there, the error runs through every month until somebody notices.
Card payments
The money lands in the bank later than the sale and short by the fee. It is posted through a clearing account — otherwise neither the day nor the amount is right. If that account never returns to zero, something is open.
Tips
Tips to staff are not revenue. When they run through the till on a card, they have to stay separate as a pass-through item. Posted as revenue, the business pays tax on money that was never its own.
Vouchers
Selling one is not yet revenue; redeeming it is. Whether VAT arises at the point of sale depends on the type of voucher — different for one covering a specific service than for one covering an amount. Set this up correctly once and never touch it again.
Deposits and empties
Small, inconspicuous, and over a year not small at all. Separate presentation, separate account.
4. How does the data get to your accountant?
Two routes are usual: you upload into the portal your practice works with, or you produce a file and send it. The first is less error-prone, because the format is checked before anyone imports it.
What to settle either way before the first month runs: who produces the batch — you or the practice, from raw data? How often? And what happens to a month in which the till had an outage?
5. Which test saves you an hour?
Before a new system goes live: export one single closed day and send it to the practice, asking for a trial import. If it goes through, so will the rest. If it does not, it is one day and not one quarter that needs reworking.
