Built for how Germany does business
Run your German entities on the same platform as the rest of the world. HGB reporting, USt with §13b reverse charges, XRechnung e-invoicing, and SEPA banking — handled by agents, reviewed by your team, and filed straight to the tax administration without leaving Light.
Book a demoEverything a finance team in Germany needs
Whether you're expanding abroad from Germany or landing there as a global company, Light keeps every entity on one ledger.
HGB
Report under HGB and group standards side by side with multibook — no parallel spreadsheets for the German statutory books.
German VAT
Standard 19% and reduced 7% rates applied via tax codes as transactions post, including §13b reverse charge scenarios.
E-invoicing
Receive and issue XRechnung and ZUGFeRD e-invoices natively, ready for Germany's phased B2B e-invoicing mandate.
SEPA banking
Connect German bank accounts via host-to-host integration or bank feeds — transactions reconcile automatically, vendors get paid via SEPA.
VAT, from Umsatzsteuer to reverse charge
Light handles the full German VAT lifecycle in the ledger — rates applied at posting, advance returns built continuously, reverse charges posted on both sides.
Umsatzsteuer-Voranmeldungen are built continuously from posted transactions, with every figure traceable down to the underlying entries. Review, approve, and submit them to the tax administration from inside Light — no CSV exports, no re-keying.
Domestic reverse charge under §13b UStG — construction services, supplies by foreign businesses, and the other §13b cases — is handled automatically: both sides of the entry posted and reflected correctly in the return.
Intra-Community acquisitions and EC sales lists (Zusammenfassende Meldungen) are covered too, so cross-border EU trade stays clean.
File your taxes directly from Light
No DATEV, no manual submission. Light integrates ERiC natively, so your team validates and transmits tax data straight to the tax administration's servers — from the same ledger the figures were built in.
ERiC — the official transmission component the German tax administration publishes for ELSTER — runs inside the product. Filings are validated against the administration's own rules before they leave Light, then transmitted directly to its servers, with no third-party tax tool in the loop.
VAT returns, E-Bilanz, and similar filings go out from Light itself. Every figure stays traceable to the postings behind it, so what you review is exactly what gets transmitted.
Filing stays where the numbers live: no export to DATEV or another tax tool, no re-keying into a portal, no reconciling what was sent against what was booked.
Per diem and mileage, out of the box
Statutory German travel and vehicle rates come natively with the platform — applied automatically, no rates to track down and enter by hand.
The Bundesministerium der Finanzen's per diem rates for domestic and international business travel — including the higher rates set for major foreign cities — are applied automatically on every expense claim, and update the moment new rates are published.
The statutory Kilometerpauschale for privately owned vehicles is applied automatically to every claim, with no manual rate lookups.
Compliant with how Germany audits
German statutory requirements are built into the ledger, not bolted on.
GoBD-ready records
Immutable, traceable postings with a complete audit trail support GoBD-compliant bookkeeping.
E-invoicing mandate
XRechnung and ZUGFeRD support keeps you ahead of the B2B e-invoicing mandate as it phases in.
Host-to-host banking
Direct connections with major German banks for statement collection and SEPA payment files at treasury-grade control.
One platform, every country you operate in
Germany is one of the many countries Light supports out of the box — same ledger, same close process, local requirements handled per entity.