An invoice is how you ask to be paid for your work. In Germany it must contain certain mandatory details, such as the name and address of both parties and your tax number or VAT ID. If something is missing, your customer can't reclaim the input VAT. In CIRO NOISE you write invoices under Finance › Invoices.
An invoice is created from a quote, an order confirmation or from scratch. Customer details come from the customer record and stay on the invoice exactly as they were when it was issued. Billable time from tasks becomes line items with an hourly rate.
How an invoice works in CIRO NOISE
While an invoice is a draft, it has no number. CIRO NOISE assigns the number only when you issue it, sequentially and without gaps, such as RE-0012. A deleted draft therefore never leaves a gap. Credit notes and cancellation invoices take their numbers from the same sequence.
Before issuing, CIRO NOISE checks the mandatory details under Section 14(4) of the German VAT Act: your company's name and address, your tax number or VAT ID, the customer's address and the date of service. If something is missing, CIRO NOISE shows the gap and asks you to confirm deliberately. For a small invoice up to €250 gross, your company's name and address are enough.
E-invoicing, tax treatment and payment
The invoice goes out as a ZUGFeRD PDF or as XRechnung XML, both following the European standard EN 16931. For public-sector customers you enter the Leitweg-ID. You set the tax treatment per document: standard VAT, small business under Section 19, reverse charge under Section 13b, intra-EU supply or export. The customer's VAT ID is validated.
The invoice carries a payment QR code (GiroCode) that the customer scans with her banking app, and optionally a payment link. Payment terms default to 14 days, and early-payment discounts and partial payments are supported. Recurring services are billed as subscription invoices.
Incoming payments and dunning
You upload your bank statement as a CAMT, MT940 or CSV file, and CIRO NOISE suggests which payment matches which invoice. If an invoice stays unpaid, there are four levels: a payment reminder plus first, second and third dunning notice, with fees, interest and a PDF letter. You trigger each level yourself or let a daily run send them automatically.
You can lock bookings up to a cut-off date. After that nothing can be changed, and corrections go through cancellations and new documents. Your tax advisor receives all invoices through the DATEV export.
An everyday example
Pascal logged 1.5 billable hours on a task for Brandt & Söhne. Lena bills the hours under Finance › Time, which creates a draft invoice with the hours as a line item. She issues it, the invoice gets the number RE-0012 and goes out as an e-invoice with a payment QR code. Three weeks later the bank statement import matches the payment, and Lena confirms.