Creating a procedural documentation

Overview

The German GoBD rules require every business subject to accounting obligations to keep a procedural documentation: a description of how documents are created, processed, retained and protected. You write this document yourself or together with your tax firm – Kyvento does not produce it. This article supplies the Kyvento facts that belong in the technical part.

The usual structure

1. General description: your business model and the role of billing – recurring subscription invoices via Kyvento, for instance.
2. User documentation: who does what in the system, from creating a product to cancelling an invoice.
3. Technical system documentation: the software in use and its safeguards – see the next section.
4. Operational documentation: your recurring routines, such as the month-end close.

These Kyvento facts belong in it

• Document creation: invoices arise automatically from subscriptions or manually; each goes through draft → finalisation → dispatch.
• Number assignment: sequential, gapless number sequences per document type; the number is only drawn at finalisation (see Invoice numbers: gapless and sequential).
• Immutability: finalised documents are write-protected, corrections run exclusively through cancellation documents; PDF, financial data and e-invoice are secured with SHA-256 checksums (see GoBD-compliant archiving).
• Retention: invoice and dunning documents are protected from deletion until the end of the retention period; a GDPR anonymisation preserves the tax-relevant documents.
• Access control: team members work with graduated permissions; two-factor authentication can be made mandatory per employee (see Inviting team members and managing permissions).
• Dispatch evidence: the email log documents which invoice and dunning emails went out and when.
• Data handover: posting data leaves the system through the DATEV export or CSV exports (see Setting up the DATEV export).

Describing your own routines

Add what only you can answer:

• Who creates products and prices, who finalises and cancels invoices?
• When and by whom is the DATEV export produced and handed to the tax firm?
• How do you handle special cases – manual invoices, credit notes, payment differences?

Good to know

The procedural documentation is a living document. Record changes to routines and settings with a date – in a tax audit what counts is the version valid at the time. Many chambers of commerce and tax advisors provide templates; the points above fill the technical part.

Next steps

• Read up on the safeguards in detail – see GoBD-compliant archiving
• Record your monthly routine as operational documentation – see Period closing and month-end