Invoices, receipts and payouts

Overview

For paid bookings in your own shop, Unitlify automatically generates invoices, archives them unalterably and compiles a monthly accounting package with all receipts for you. On top of that come the payouts from your Stripe account and the invoices Unitlify issues to you.

Automatic invoice to the guest

An invoice is created automatically as soon as a booking

• came in via an own channel (shop, widget, administration, customer portal, POS),
• is confirmed and
• has been paid in full (a redeemed voucher counts as payment).

There is no invoice for bookings via GetYourGuide, Jochen Schweizer and other partners. There, the partner issues the invoice to the guest. For payment on site or still outstanding payment, a purchase receipt is created first; an invoice only follows once the booking is paid.

Exception: if the guest ticks "Need an invoice?" in the checkout, the invoice is generated immediately, even with outstanding payment, and sent with the confirmation email.

There is exactly one invoice per booking. A nightly run catches up on invoices that could not be generated at the time of booking.

These invoices are generated regardless of whether you have booked the Invoicing module. The module only unlocks the "Invoices" page, where you see the documents, write manual invoices and create credit notes.

Number range and mandatory details

• Invoice numbers have the format RE-2026-00001, credit notes GS-2026-00001, each consecutive per year. You change both prefixes in the invoice settings.
• Default: 19 % VAT, payment term 14 days, euro. Small businesses switch to 0 % with a note according to § 19 UStG (German small business VAT exemption).
• Enter your tax number or VAT ID in the company profile. Without it, invoices and e-invoices are not compliant.

Manual invoices

Under Finance → Invoices → New invoice you write invoices or proforma invoices by hand, for example for corporate events or additional services: recipient, line items with gross price and tax rate, due date (default 14 days).

• A new invoice is initially a draft and can be edited. It is issued with Send by email (sent with the PDF attached to the email address of the booking or the customer) or with Mark as sent if you hand over the invoice another way. After that it is unalterable, corrections are made via credit notes.
• Mark as paid records the incoming payment.
• Payment reminder: in the invoice settings you enable reminders and define how many days after the due date a reminder is sent. Unitlify then sends one reminder with PDF per unpaid invoice to the recipient, checked once a day at 9 a.m., and sets the invoice to "Overdue".
• Proforma invoices are not invoices in the tax sense: no e-invoice data, no archive, can be cancelled at any time.

Manual invoices end up in the accounting package in the folder "Weitere Rechnungen" (other invoices) and must be posted separately, because they are not part of the posting batch.

Cancellation and credit note

An issued invoice is not deleted but reversed by a cancellation credit note:

• Cancel invoice on a sent, overdue or paid invoice automatically creates a credit note for the outstanding amount and sets the invoice to cancelled. Drafts and proformas are simply cancelled.
• Credit note by hand: for any issued invoice, up to the outstanding amount. If the invoice is thereby fully credited, it counts as cancelled.
• For refunds from the booking and for cancellations or changes to the booking, credit notes are created automatically, also for refunds made directly in the Stripe dashboard.

Important: a cancellation credit note is a document, not a payment. No money flows back because of it. You trigger the refund to the guest in the booking (see Rebooking and administrative booking). Credit notes do not appear as revenue in the list and statistics.

E-invoice and archive

Every issued invoice is an e-invoice: a PDF/A-3 in ZUGFeRD format with embedded structured data according to EN 16931. On request there is additionally an XRechnung file for public authorities.

With issuance, the invoice is archived unalterably (GoBD, German bookkeeping rules): PDF and XML are generated once, stored with a checksum and locked against changes, for at least 8 and by default 10 years from the end of the year. Every later download comes from the archive, nothing is re-rendered. The invoice view shows "Archived unalterably on …".

Accounting package for the tax advisor

Bookings → Export → Accounting package with receipts creates a ZIP file for a period of up to one year:

• DATEV posting batch (EXTF) and payment reconciliation as CSV
• Folders Belege (invoice or purchase receipt per booking), Gutschriften (credit notes), Stornierte Rechnungen (cancelled invoices), Weitere Rechnungen (manual invoices)
• on request tickets, vouchers and value vouchers as PDF
• a table of contents and a list of what could not be generated

Two modes:

• Individual postings (default): one posting line per booking.
• Monthly summary posting: one line per account and month instead of thousands of individual lines, plus the monthly statement as PDF and XLSX. Only for whole calendar months and only if all accounts are stored in the settings. This saves money at the tax advisor, because DATEV charges per posting line.

Packages of completed months are kept for 180 days. If documents are added later, create the package again. One package runs at a time per business.

Attention: the export under Invoices → Export contains all invoices, including those from bookings. Post either the posting batch from the package or the invoice export, never both, otherwise revenue is counted twice.

Payouts

Finance → Payouts shows the payouts from your Stripe account to your bank account: what is on its way, the next payout, the balance and the schedule (daily, weekly, monthly or manual, configurable in the Stripe dashboard).

For each payout you see the items it contains: payments, refunds, Unitlify fee, Stripe fee, with booking number or voucher code. Export as CSV or XLSX.

The Monthly transaction export delivers all transactions of a calendar month with the associated payout, on a second sheet the payouts and the amount still outstanding. This is how you reconcile Stripe payouts with your bank statement.

PayPal payments do not go through Stripe and do not appear here; you see them in your PayPal account.

Invoices from Unitlify to you

Under Administration → Unitlify invoices you find the invoices Unitlify issues to your business. They are generated on the 1st of the month and sent to the invoice email (otherwise the contact email) from the company profile, payment term 14 days.

• Monthly invoice: module and package fees for the current month in advance, pro-rata subsequent charges for the previous month as well as system and PayPal fees of the previous month. At 0 € there is no invoice.
• Stripe fee invoice: the payment processing fee for payments via Stripe is withheld by Stripe directly from your payouts. For this you receive a separate, already paid invoice per month, with a receipt attachment (XLSX) that allocates the fee to the individual bookings.

The PDFs come from our accounting system and are the legally binding original.

DATEV integration

Under Settings → Integrations → DATEV you connect Unitlify with DATEV (log in at DATEV, grant access for "Rechnungswesen"). Then: Apply client file (advisor and client number), Transfer to DATEV (posting batch for a period), Check import status.

• Transfers happen only on click, never automatically.
• What is transferred is the posting batch with individual postings. The monthly summary posting is only available as a file in the accounting package.
• A "403" during transfer means missing rights in the client's DATEV rights management, not in Unitlify.

Without a DATEV connection, simply give the accounting package to your tax advisor.

Business customers and VAT ID

Offers can be restricted to businesses and institutions ("bookable for businesses only", optionally "VAT ID required"). In the shop, the company name is then mandatory. Unitlify checks an entered VAT ID against the EU system VIES and stores the result. If the number is required and invalid according to VIES, the order is rejected; if VIES is currently unavailable, the order goes through. None of these restrictions apply in the administration.

The payment method Bank transfer (invoice with virtual IBAN, automatic reconciliation via Stripe) is described in Setting up payment methods.

Troubleshooting checklist

• No invoice for the booking: booking via partner channel, still unpaid, or on site without "Need an invoice?". After payment is received, the invoice comes automatically.
• Invoice cannot be changed: it has been issued. Create a credit note and write a new invoice.
• Cancelled, but the guest has no money: trigger the refund in the booking, the credit note is only the document.
• Revenue doubled at the tax advisor: posting batch and invoice export were both posted.
• Summary posting aborts: incomplete month or missing accounts in the settings.
• Payout does not match the bank statement: use the Monthly transaction export; Stripe and Unitlify fees are shown per item.
• Invoice from Unitlify not received: check the invoice email in the company profile; all invoices are listed under Unitlify invoices.