DATEV Buchungsdatenservice

Last updated: March 22, 2026

đź“‹ Overview

This integration connects with two DATEV components:

  • DATEV Rechnungswesen – On-premise accounting software. The generated bookings will be pushed into DATEV Rechnungswesen.

  • DATEV Unternehmen Online (DUO) – Cloud portal used for sending attachments such as documents, invoices, or receipts. If you don’t plan to send attachments, DUO is not required.


🚨 PREREQUISITES (conditions to be met prior to connection)

1. Licenses

Licences

Requirement descriptions

DATEV Rechnungswesen licence

Mandatory. Owned either by your company or provided through your accountant/tax advisor.

DATEV Buchungsdatenservice

Mandatory. Enables API access to push to bookings to DATEV Rechnungswesen. This service needs to be activated on company level:

https://www.datev.de/web/de/shop/produkt-details/datev-buchungsdatenservice-91000

DATEV Unternehmen Online (DUO) licence

Only required if attachments (PDFs, invoices, receipts) will be sent to DATEV.

DATEV Belegbilderservice

Only required if attachments (PDFs, invoices, receipts) will be sent to DATEV. This service needs to be activated on company level: https://www.datev.de/web/de/shop/produkt-details/datev-belegbilderservice-rechnungswesen-92902

How to confirm licenses:

  • In DATEV Arbeitsplatz, go to Licence Management (Lizenzverwaltung) to view installed licences.

  • Or request confirmation from your DATEV administrator, tax consultant (Steuerberater), or DATEV service partner.

2. Information to provide

Verify that you are able to provide all information listed in the "Connection" section below. Contact the needed persons before the activation process if you miss some information.


⚡️ CONNECTION

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Step 1: Choose a name for your connection. (If the connection name field isn’t visible, simply skip this step and continue.

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Step 2 : Choose whether you want to send attachments

If you don’t see this option, it means your software provider preconfigured this setting for you.

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  • If your integration needs to send PDF invoices, receipts, or supporting documents to DATEV, select Yes to enable attachments

  • This requires a valid DATEV Unternehmen Online licence (see above in prerequisites section)

  • This requires the Belegbilderservice to be enabled on your company (see above in prerequisites section)

Step 3 : Choose whether you want to upload the chart of accounts

If you don’t see this option, it means your software provider preconfigured this setting for you.

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By default DATEV doesn't allow to retrieve the existing general ledger accounts from DATEV Rechnungswesen automatically. If you select "Yes, you will have the possibility to upload the exiting general ledger accounts in the next step of the activation process. Uploading the existing general ledger accounts can ease the activation process when mappings needs to be done. This avoids to fill in manually the number of the ledger accounts you want to use in the generated bookings. You can find more info about this at the bottom of this document in the "CONFIGURE" section.

Step 4 : Enter your Client number and Consultant number

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Where to find them ? 👇

  • Go to DUO sign-in page

  • Select your company (if asked)

  • The numbers are shown on the top bar:

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Step 5 : Specify the length of the general ledger accounts configured in DATEV Rechnungswesen

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In DATEV Rechnungswesen you can specify the length you want to use when handling general ledger accounts. This information is important as it is needed to generate the bookings.

The length can be:

  • 4 characters

  • 5 characters

  • 6 characters

  • 7 characters

  • 8 characters

You can retrieve this information from DATEV Unternehmen online (if the setup has been done correctly):

  1. Go to DUO sign-in page

  2. Select your company (if asked)

  3. Go to "Stammdaten":

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  1. The information can be seen at the bottom right of your screen. In this example "4":

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If this information is not shown it means it has not been setup correctly in DATEV Unternehmen online. In this case you need to ask your tax consultant for this information.

Step 6 : Specify the type of chart of accounts

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You can use 2 different chart of accounts in DATEV:

  • SKR 03

  • SKR 04

This information is needed to generate the bookings. Contact the needed person before the activation process if you don't have this information on your side. Your tax consultant will be able to provide you this information.

Step 7 : Specify the start day of the fiscal year

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A fiscal year generally starts on the 1st of January. For accounting or administrative reasons, it can be the case that the fiscal year starts on another day. Please provide this information as it is needed to generate the bookings.

The expected format is day and Month without spaces (ddMM): this means 0102 for the 1st of February.

You can retrieve this information from DATEV Unternehmen online (if the setup has been done correctly):

  1. Go to DUO sign-in page

  2. Select your company (if asked)

  3. Go to "Stammdaten":

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  1. The information can be seen at the bottom right of your screen. In this example "01.01.2026". It means that you need to fill in 0101.

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If this information is not shown it means it has not been setup correctly in DATEV Unternehmen online. In this case you need to ask your tax consultant for this information.

AUTHENTICATION

You will be redirect to the login page of DUO to authenticate yourself and authorise the connection.

You can log in using your SmartLogin or your SmartCard/mIDentity.

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CONFIGURE

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In the first step you can choose to upload the chart of accounts. If you select "Yes" this extra activation step will be enabled. In this step you can upload the existing general ledger accounts based on 2 file formats:

  • Excel

  • CSV (DATEV-format)

Both files will have to be generated from DATEV Rechnungswesen.

Excel:

To generate the Excel file you need to follow these steps:

  1. Open your company in DATEV Rechnungswesen

  2. Go to the accounting plan:

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  1. Choose the "Beschriftet (Standard, Kanzlei, Ind.)" view, select all ledger accounts and open the ledger accounts in an Excel file:

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  1. Save the file

In this format the following columns are REQUIRED:

  • Konto von

  • Beschriftung

  • HFTyp

  • Funktion

  • FE

CSV DATEV-Format:

DATEV allows to export the general ledger accounts in its own DATEV-format. You can generate this file as following:

  1. Open your company in DATEV Rechnungswesen

  2. Open the export menu:

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  1. Select the general ledger accounts export checkboxes:

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  1. Save the file in the wanted folder:

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It is important that you don't adapt the content of this file manually !

Import exported data in DATEV Rechnungswesen

To import the exported data in DATEV Rechnungswesen, you need to follow these steps:

  1. Open your company in DATEV Rechnungswesen

  2. Select the "Mandant ergänzen" function and download the data:

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  1. Go to the "Stapelverarbeitung" function and select the imports you want to handle:

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