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Connect Shopify to DATEV: Tax-Ready Booking Entries

Shopify orders, refunds and payouts are turned into a DATEV posting batch, separated by payment provider, tax rate and delivery country. This page documents the reference architecture: which order and payment data is needed, why every payment provider needs its own clearing account, and which cases such as gift cards and OSS get booked wrong most often.

ShopifyDATEV

Results & Benefits

100%
Automated booking entries for DATEV
10h+
Monthly time savings for the tax advisor
GoBD
Compliant and audit-proof documentation
< 24h
Delay between order and booking

How it Works

1

Collect Order and Payment Data

For the period, orders are read with line items, tax lines, shipping, discounts and transactions, along with refunds and the payouts of each payment provider. Orders and payouts come from separate sources and are joined through the transactions attached to each order.

2

Classify for Tax

Delivery country, customer type, product type and the rate actually charged determine the classification: domestic, intra-community supply, OSS turnover or export. Each combination points to a defined revenue account and posting key. Unknown combinations are never estimated.

3

Model the Payment Side

Each order books against the clearing account of the payment provider actually used. Orders paid with two methods, for example a gift card plus a card, are split accordingly. The provider payout later books from the clearing account to the bank, with the fee as a separate expense.

4

Write the Posting Batch

Lines are produced in DATEV format: document date, amount, debit and credit indicator, currency code, account, contra account, posting text and document field. Posting text and document field are truncated to the permitted lengths and characters without losing the link back to the order.

5

Reconcile Before Handover

A check compares turnover per tax rate from Shopify against the totals in the batch, and payouts against the clearing accounts. Where anything differs, the batch is not handed over and the difference is reported with the affected order number attached.

6

Handover, Flag and Catch-Up

The checked batch goes to the tax office or into DATEV Unternehmen Online. The period is flagged as handed over so a later run cannot export it again. Late arrivals, such as refunds coming in after the cut-off, deliberately fall into the following month.

Use Cases

One Clearing Account Per Payment Provider

Shopify Payments, PayPal, Klarna and purchase on account settle on different schedules, each aggregated and net of their own fees. Every provider therefore gets its own clearing account. Booked through one shared account, a month-end difference can no longer be attributed to any single provider.

Reporting OSS Turnover Separately

B2C deliveries to other EU countries are charged at the destination rate and do not belong in the regular German VAT return. So that the One-Stop-Shop report can be produced at all, this turnover is booked to separate revenue accounts per country and rate rather than into one pooled account.

Selling a Gift Card Is Not Revenue

A gift card sale appears in Shopify as an order, and the redemption appears later as a payment method on a different order. Booking both as revenue reports the same turnover twice. The sale belongs on a liability account and revenue arises only on redemption.

Spreading Discounts Across Tax Rates

An order-level discount has to be allocated proportionally across the tax rates it covers. Where an order contains goods at the reduced rate alongside goods at the standard rate, a flat allocation shifts the taxable base. Shipping is carried as its own line with its own tax treatment.

Refunds Across a Period Boundary

A refund in January against a December order lands in a period that is already closed. It is therefore booked in the current month and chained to the original order number, instead of reaching back into a batch that has already been locked.

Document Numbers DATEV Will Accept

Shopify order numbers usually carry a hash symbol and a store prefix, while Belegfeld 1 is limited to 36 characters and a restricted character set. The number is normalised by a fixed, documented rule so it stays stable and the path back to the order remains unambiguous.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a Shopify order confirmation an invoice?
Usually not. An order confirmation does not automatically meet the German requirements for a VAT invoice. Where you are obliged to issue documents, that needs an invoicing app or a connected accounting system. The DATEV batch books turnover; it does not produce invoice documents and does not archive them.
Why does every payment provider need its own account?
Because each provider has its own payout schedule, fee model and chargeback behaviour. On a shared account the balances mix and a difference can no longer be attributed to anyone. Separate accounts turn month end into a check with clear questions rather than a search through hundreds of transactions.
How often does the export run?
A daily run with a monthly handover is the usual pattern. A posting batch is a period artefact, and pushing a single entry into DATEV within seconds buys nothing. The daily run exists so clarification cases surface within a day rather than at month end.
What happens if the same period is exported twice?
DATEV does not check for duplicates on import. A second import creates every entry a second time, and once the period is locked each line has to be reversed individually. Every handed-over period is therefore flagged and a repeat export is only produced after an explicit release.
How are Shopify Markets and foreign currencies handled?
An order carries both the presentment currency and the shop settlement currency. Entries are made in euro, with the currency code and the rate used carried alongside. Exchange rate differences arising between order date and payout date belong on their own account rather than in revenue.
Who defines accounts, tax keys and the chart of accounts?
Your tax adviser. We produce the proposed mapping, it is reviewed and signed off together, and from then on it is treated as master data with a documented change history. Whether SKR03 or SKR04 is used is the client decision; the mapping table exists only for the chosen one.
Is Shopify POS turnover included?
Yes, provided it runs in the same shop. What needs deciding is whether cash and terminal card payments should run through the same clearing accounts as online sales or separate ones, and how till records are documented. That is an agreement with your tax adviser, not a technical setting.
Can historical periods be booked retroactively?
In principle yes, but only for periods that are not yet locked. Before any catch-up run we establish how far the tax office has booked. In practice we start with the current month and leave closed periods alone, because correcting them costs more than the benefit.
How long does setup take?
One shop, one country, one currency and one payment provider is running within a few working days. Several payment providers, OSS across multiple countries, foreign currencies or several legal entities push that to one to three weeks, because each combination is agreed with the tax office and tested. An entry scope starts from 5,000 EUR, with ongoing tool costs of 50 to 200 EUR per month.
What does this integration explicitly not do?
It produces neither the German VAT return nor the OSS report, does not replace review and locking by your tax adviser, and is not a DATEV-certified interface. It does not correct wrong tax settings in the shop, does not register you for VAT abroad, and does not provide audit-proof document archiving.

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