Creating and changing a partner
2 min read
Contact details at the top, billing details below. The billing details decide whether an invoice may be created at all, and with which tax.
Contact details above, billing below
Above, who you reach: name, contact person, address, phone. Below, everything that belongs on an invoice. The split is not cosmetic: without the lower part no invoice appears.
Country and VAT number decide the tax
That is why the country is a picker and not a text box: DE and Germany and de could not be turned into a tax rate. A partner elsewhere in the EU with a valid VAT number gets an invoice without tax and a note about the reverse charge.
The buyer reference
An identifier the partner needs so their accounts can match the invoice: order number, cost centre, or in public procurement the routing ID. It appears on every invoice to them and is often mandatory for an e-invoice.
Why is the country a list and not a text field?
Because the tax case depends on it. "Germany", "DE" and "Deutschland" are the same thing to a person and three different answers to an invoice. Hence the list.
When do I need a separate billing address?
When the invoice goes somewhere else than the post: to a head office or an accounting department, say. With the switch off, the contact address is used for the invoice as well.
What does the VAT ID do?
It decides the tax: a partner elsewhere in the EU with a valid VAT ID receives an invoice without tax and with the reverse-charge note. Without a VAT ID your own country's rate is charged.
What is the buyer reference for?
It appears on every invoice to this partner: order number, cost centre, or the routing ID in public procurement. For XRechnung it is mandatory: without it no valid document can be produced, and the invoice is not sent but marked with the reason.
Who sees that I changed something here?
Every change is written to the change log, with the field, the old and the new value. That is what conversations like "we never received anything" rest on: the log says when the address changed and who changed it.