DATEV handover: entries, documents and import checks

Know what each part carries

A document number and a clickable document link do different jobs. An invoice reference can support open-item matching. A document link must point to evidence available through the receiving document workflow. A ZIP file beside a CSV does not by itself prove that clicking a row in DATEV will open the correct document.

DATEV documents these fields in its booking-batch specification. Check the actual receiving workflow, including document import, during setup.

Before generating the first package

Agree these settings with the person performing the import:

• Correct legal entity, fiscal year, period and applicable target-client identifiers.
• Chart of accounts, account lengths and mapping of any client-specific accounts.
• Customer and supplier numbers, including existing accounts in the target ledger.
• Treatment of VAT keys and automatic tax accounts, avoiding a second tax calculation.
• Reference fields used to allocate invoices and payments.
• Which entries come from Hans and which already arrive from payroll or another system.

Hans supports importing master data, accounts and opening balances. An opening-balance import should not be described as an import of individual historical open items. Plan any required OPOS detail separately before relying on later settlement against it.

Worked control: a partly accepted file

Assume the agreed September export contains 120 accounting events represented by 146 CSV data rows. Split entries explain the difference; neither number is a document count. The receiving workflow in this example accepts 145 rows and rejects one supplier row because its account has not been set up.

The correct status is partly imported. Uploading all 146 rows again without checking the accepted population risks duplicate entries.

1. Retain the original file and import result.
2. Identify the rejected row by its stable reference.
3. Confirm the intended supplier and correct the account setup or mapping.
4. Use the receiving system's supported repair procedure. If a clean reimport is chosen, first establish that the previous import has been completely and traceably removed.
5. Reconcile the final accepted population and ledger balances.

A control sheet after successful repair might contain:

These are teaching figures, not a screenshot of an export report. Compare the ledger effects using the actual format: one CSV row does not necessarily equal one debit or credit line.

Check references as well as totals

Matching totals can hide a wrong account or wrong document. Include representative transactions in the first import check:

• an invoice and its payment, including the remaining open-item amount;
• a split invoice with more than one expense or tax treatment;
• a supplier correction;
• a payment-provider settlement;
• a document that must open or be retrievable from the receiving record.

For each, follow the source to the entry and back again. Check tax results separately; a balanced ledger can still contain a tax-key error.

Use the same discipline beyond DATEV

Agenda FIBU and Lexware buchhaltung have their own import settings. Confirm field order, number and date conventions, account mapping and tax-key handling in the chosen CSV profile. Lexware buchhaltung and Lexware Office are different products; a configurable CSV export is not a claim of a Lexware Office API connection.

Store the accepted package version with its import outcome. Later changes need a clearly identified correction, explained in the post-close guide. For a new client, use the setup guide and supplier-account alignment before the first monthly transfer.