Transfer documents to DATEV: a reliable handover to your accounting firm

Sending documents to your accounting firm should reduce the work left at month end. Too often, it starts another search: a document is missing, a file has been sent twice, and nobody is certain whether the latest transfer arrived. A reliable handover creates a clear working position. Your office knows what it provided and can answer questions without assembling the entire month again.

The essential distinction is between documents being available, their successful transmission and the underlying transactions being professionally resolved. These states are connected, but they are not interchangeable. Keeping them separate makes cooperation with the accounting firm easier to organise and avoids repeated work. This particularly helps owners and staff who prepare the bookkeeping alongside other responsibilities.

webRichtung Core provides DATEV upload with a log showing what was transferred and when. The Core module page describes this capability alongside contacts, orders and invoices. This article develops a practical monthly handover process around it. The accounting treatment and requirements for your particular period-end work remain matters to agree with your accounting firm.

Agree what the accounting firm should receive

Before transferring a large collection, agree the actual scope. Which documents does the firm need from your business, which information already arrives through another route, and who supplies whatever is missing? Having a digital file does not automatically make another transmission useful. Processes that developed separately can easily create several delivery routes for the same invoice.

DATEV’s overview of digital exchange with accounting firms distinguishes supporting documents, invoice data and payment data among the information involved. For your process, this means that sending a document does not necessarily answer every question about a payment. Establish what the firm already receives before staff spend time finding extra files or sending the same collection again.

Record the agreement in a few understandable sentences. For example, the office collects purchasing documents, management explains unclear business circumstances, and a named contact at the accounting firm bundles outstanding questions through the agreed channel. This is an organisational example. In a small company, one person may hold several roles, provided each responsibility remains clear.

Also agree how later additions will be recognised. A document received late should not disappear into an unexplained second folder for the month. A clear reference to the original handover may be enough. The important point is that the firm can see which transaction is being supplemented and your office can still reconstruct the earlier transmission.

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Assemble one defined monthly collection

Start with a defined period and the document scope agreed with the firm. Use the records already arriving in your business. The purpose is a collection that you can hand over and explain later. Reorganising an entire historical archive is not a necessary first step towards that outcome.

Check that the required documents are readable and complete. A cropped amount or missing second page creates a question later even when the file transfers without technical difficulty. A brief check when it arrives may therefore cost less effort than an urgent search after transmission. This concerns practical usability, rather than asking office staff to make tax decisions.

Connect unclear documents with their business context where your team knows it. A short explanation of the relevant project may be more useful than renaming an invoice file. If the context is unknown, record the open question and the person able to answer it. Do not invent an allocation merely to make the collection look complete.

For corrections, establish which versions should be supplied. An original invoice and a subsequent correction can both matter to understanding the transaction. Instead of deciding independently that one may be omitted, agree the handling with the firm. The handover should preserve the relationship between the records and avoid creating unexplained gaps.

Set responsibilities and a repeatable monthly rhythm

A stable routine needs a few reliable handover points rather than a crowded schedule. Agree when the office prepares the collection, when internal questions need answers and when the accounting firm expects the documents. These dates reflect your cooperation. They are not universal statutory deadlines and need not be identical across businesses.

Separate responsibility for collection from responsibility for unresolved decisions. An employee may notice a missing document without being able to explain why a particular expense arose. If that person has to wait for every answer, the handover becomes a bottleneck. Name someone who can respond to questions about unclear business transactions.

Arrange a substitute for the actual transmission as well. That person needs access to the agreed working collection and must understand what has already been sent. A personal inbox or a note known only to the usual colleague is insufficient. The handover should remain understandable during an ordinary week of annual leave without reconstructing the whole month.

Bring queries together in an agreed location or through a clear contact. Several conversation threads carrying partly different answers consume time on both sides. You do not have to introduce another system. What matters is that the latest substantive answer can be found and that everyone can distinguish an open point from one already resolved.

Monthly example: from collection to the first handover

The following checklist is a completely hypothetical working plan for a small service business. It covers a month requiring 48 documents. That number is chosen for the example and says nothing about your company or a product limit. Three roles are involved: the office, management and a designated contact at the accounting firm.

On the agreed preparation day, the office checks the collection. There are 43 readable documents. Three transactions still lack their documents, and two existing documents have incomplete scans. The collection therefore consists of 43 usable records, three missing records and two needing complete replacements: 48 transactions in total. Counting files alone would misrepresent readiness.

The office requests the three missing documents from the responsible colleagues and obtains complete versions of the two incomplete records. Management also explains the business purpose of one document already present. That explanation supplements an existing transaction; it does not become a forty-ninth document in the example’s count.

By the agreed transmission point, both complete replacements and two of the three missing documents are available. There are now 47 usable records. One transaction remains open, with a responsible person and the next clarification step recorded. The office agrees with the firm to transfer the 47 available documents now and supply the remaining record as an identifiable later addition.

The person responsible carries out the agreed transfer and checks the log afterwards. Their own overview records the collection concerned and the transmission time. The firm receives the note about the outstanding transaction through the agreed channel. The first handover is therefore usable without claiming that the entire month’s questions have already been settled.

Check transmission and accounting questions separately

After uploading, perform a targeted check rather than beginning another full search. Does the intended collection match the visible transfer status? Core’s DATEV log shows what was transferred and when. Use that evidence to understand the actual handover. An uncertain status should not be replaced with an assumption that everything probably arrived.

Successful transmission does not mean the accounting firm has already completed its work on every transaction. A perfectly readable invoice may still raise a question about the business context. Conversely, a clearly understood document cannot support the joint process if it has not reached the agreed recipient. Both dimensions need their own clear working status.

If a transfer attempt ends ambiguously, inspect the existing log and identify the records concerned first. Immediately sending the entire month again can create extra reconciliation work. Do not rely on an unverified assumption of automatic duplicate prevention. Decide what actually needs resending from the available status information and the agreement with the accounting firm.

When responding to questions, identify the document or transaction clearly enough for both sides to mean the same record. “Last week’s invoice” may be too vague when there were several deliveries. A meaningful combination of issuer, date and existing reference helps. Record the substantive answer against the open point so it does not need to be found again.

Follow the later addition through to a resolved point

In the example, the final missing document arrives later. The office checks readability and its connection to the transaction, then supplies that addition through the agreed procedure. There is no reason to resend the original 47-document collection merely because one more record became available. Update the open transaction with the actual later transmission status.

The month’s collection now contains 48 usable documents. In this example, that means the agreed records have been provided. Whether every accounting question has been answered is assessed separately by the business and the firm. If the purpose of one item still needs explanation, that question remains open even though the document count is complete.

A useful answer connects the explanation to the actual business transaction. “It belongs to the project” is less helpful than a short context statement that the responsible person can confirm. If the office lacks that information, it asks internally and gives the firm a realistic next response step. The process should not conceal missing knowledge with plausible language.

Close an outstanding point only when the agreed addition has been made or the firm confirms that nothing further is required. This keeps your own overview trustworthy. Sending a question is not the same as resolving it. Maintaining that small distinction prevents unfinished issues from unexpectedly reappearing in the following month.

Review the first month together in practical terms

After the first cycle, discuss a few specific observations. Which documents were missing at transmission? Which queries arose from poor readability? Where was a business explanation absent? These findings point to different improvements. A missing invoice calls for a better incoming process; an unclear purpose calls for a better internal responsibility.

Consider time spent on the whole handover. A fast upload may look impressive while staff spent hours searching beforehand. For a limited comparison, measure collection, checking, transmission and rework together. You can then see whether the routine reduces effort or simply moves it into another stage where it becomes less visible.

In the hypothetical example, you might compare a previous total of 150 minutes with 100 minutes for the new cycle. The difference is 50 minutes. This is a calculation assumption only, not a saving promised by Core. Include initial setup and agreement with the accounting firm when making a fair overall decision about the process.

Improve the recurring cause that creates the most work first. If questions repeatedly depend on the same internal person, earlier clarification may help more than a new folder structure. If unreadable documents dominate, examine how records arrive. The monthly review should lead to an actionable change, rather than a long collection of general wishes.

Start with a real month and an agreed recipient

Prepare the document scope, responsibilities, transfer route and treatment of open points together with your accounting firm. Choose a current month whose records your team understands. This lets you assess the benefit of an understandable handover early and build on the process already used in your company.

The Core page presents DATEV upload with its transfer log and the connection between contacts, orders and invoices. You can create access through the existing start process. Bring the questions from your first monthly plan: what should be transferred, who checks the status and how does an unresolved query reach the right person? A file upload can then become a dependable shared working step.

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