DATEV is the software used by most German tax accountants. Zirko produces an archive for it consisting of a posting batch (the journal entries as a file in the DATEV format) and document images (the invoice PDFs) — your accountant imports both instead of retyping every invoice.
Two places belong together:
- Settings → Accounting → DATEV — this is where the defaults live.
- The document list → download — there you choose the format DATEV (PDF + CSV) and receive the archive.
This applies only to companies based in Germany. The export works with the German charts of accounts and German tax cases; for any other company anywhere else no postings are created — Zirko does not guess an account.
The DATEV tab
- Chart of accounts — SKR03 or SKR04. Your tax accountant knows which one your bookkeeping uses.
- Consultant number and client number — your tax accountant gives you both; they go into the header of the posting batch so the office can match the file to its client.
- Debtor accounts from — the customer account is built from the digits of your customer number (customer "K-0042" with base 10000 becomes debtor 10042). Without usable digits Zirko posts to the base as a collective account.
- Small business (§ 19 UStG) — fills the small business rate into every new document, controls which revenue account tax-free turnover goes to, and feeds the mandatory-details check of your documents. More under Setting VAT rates.
- Revenue accounts per tax case — preset with the DATEV standard accounts of the chosen chart (for instance 8400/4400 for 19 %). If your accountant uses their own accounts, enter theirs.
What the archive contains
Per calendar year one posting batch file and in addition one PDF per document, named after the invoice number — that is how DATEV Unternehmen online joins image and posting. Zirko posts one line per document: gross amount, debtor to revenue account. Cancellation invoices and invoice corrections go along as reverse postings (Generalumkehr) — the way DATEV provides for undoing a posting.
What stays out — by name
The export lets nothing vanish silently: before the download the dialog lists every reason. No posting is created today for:
- Quotes, delivery notes, letters — not accounting documents.
- Interim, partial final and final invoices — down payments need their own account logic (payments received, reclassified at the final invoice); as a plain revenue posting they would be booked wrongly.
- Documents mixing several tax cases — say 19 % and 7 % on one sheet; a single posting cannot separate them.
- Tax cases without a DATEV account — zero rate, historical rates such as 16 %, foreign rates, documents issued without tax.
- Documents in a foreign currency and documents without a positive gross amount.
- Incoming invoices — the export covers only your outgoing documents.
How those documents reach the accountant anyway
The same download can deliver them as PDF (or PDF plus e-invoice XML) — select the documents and pick the PDF format. The accountant then books them by hand. For a complete handover of all data there is also the data export.
What does not work today
- No direct connection to DATEV. Zirko transfers nothing automatically to the accountant's office; you pass the file on — by email or via your accountant's upload portal.
- No payments, no bank movements in the batch — outgoing documents only.