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Digitized Receipts and the Tax Office: What Is Accepted

Does the tax office accept scanned receipts? Yes – under the rules of substitute scanning. What you need to consider so digital receipts hold up.

The tax office generally accepts digitized receipts: the GoBD permit so-called substitute scanning, where the digital image replaces the paper receipt. The prerequisite is an orderly process – the scanned image must match the original, be stored in an unalterable manner and remain retrievable for the statutory period. In many cases, the paper may be destroyed afterward.

What "substitute scanning" means

Substitute scanning means: the scanned receipt legally takes the place of the paper. For this to work, the GoBD set out requirements for the process:

• Visual correspondence: The scan reproduces the original completely and legibly – including reverse sides with relevant content.
• Timely capture: Receipts are digitized as soon as possible after receipt.
• Unalterability: The digitized copy is stored so that it cannot be changed or deleted unnoticed.
• Traceability: The process is described – who scans, how it is checked, where the files go (process documentation).

When the paper has to stay

Not every receipt may go into the recycling bin after scanning. Exceptions are in particular documents that by law must be kept or presented in the original – such as notarial deeds or documents with a special evidentiary function. Customs documents and certain certificates can also be special cases. Before you destroy entire stacks of files, it is worth checking with your tax advisor – once destroyed, the original is gone.

The process documentation: small effort, big effect

Many are put off by the term, yet for small businesses a short, honest description is often enough: Which receipts are scanned, by whom, with which device, how is legibility checked, where do the digitized copies go, how is storage protected? One page that describes your actual process is worth more than twenty pages of theory that no one follows.

What an audit-proof process looks like

1. Scanning directly into the system: The scanner sends via WebDAV into webRichtung documents – without a detour through local folders where files could get lost or be altered.
2. Automatic processing: Every receipt is read and classified; you check the result in the document view with preview.
3. Archive unalterably: Completed receipts move into the GoBD archive with Object Lock – locked against overwriting and deletion for 6, 8 or 10 years, depending on the retention class.
4. Stay retrievable: During an audit you find receipts by content, type, date or amount – instead of rummaging through boxes.

How to approach getting started with digitization in general is shown in the article Digitizing receipts: the simple way.

The most important thing in one sentence

The tax office accepts digital receipts if your process is orderly – what matters is correspondence with the original, unalterability and retrievability, not the medium.

In practice this means: anyone who starts today with a clean scanning process, writes one page of process documentation and archives the digitized copies unalterably has essentially met the requirements. The effort is manageable, the benefit twofold – less paper in the office and considerably less stress when an audit actually comes.

This article provides general information and does not replace legal or tax advice.

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