The OZG-RE assumes the following three tasks for the transmission of e-invoices:
Indirect federal administration institutions (and cooperating states) are connected to the OZG-RE. See the overview of the public contracting authorities connected to the OZG-RE (page in German only).
You can download all e-invoices, no matter how you submitted them, in XML format from the „Invoice status” page. The invoice in XML format is considered a valid original invoice.
The user account known as “Mein Unternehmenskonto” (which is based on the ELSTER tax software) provides companies in Germany with a central, standardised interface through which they can use the online administrative services of various authorities and communicate with those authorities. Further information on registering with and using “Mein Unternehmenskonto” can be found on the FAQ page of the “Mein Unternehmenskonto” website (German only).
“Mein Unternehmenskonto” provides companies in Germany with a standardised, single sign-on account through which to use not just the OZG-RE (for sending and receiving invoices) but other online federal administrative services as well. By using the OZG-RE via “Mein Unternehmenskonto”, invoice issuers and recipients can sign in more conveniently and benefit from a higher degree of security.
When registering with the OZG-RE, you create two accounts: a main account for your company (also known as the “OZG-RE account”) and a user account associated with that main account. Additional users may also be added to the main account. The user who carries out the registration automatically becomes the administrator of the main OZG-RE account. Registration should therefore only be done by a responsible member of the company.
There are two ways to register:
To register with “Mein Unternehmenskonto”, go to the login page of the OZG-RE website and click on “Register My Unternehmenskonto ”. Clicking this option will open ELSTER. Here you can switch the language to English and register for an ELSTER organisation certificate. Click “Next” and you will come to a page where you can enter your company information. Required fields are marked with an asterisk. Having entered all the required information and completed the registration process, you will receive your ELSTER organisation certificate, which allows you to sign into the OZG-RE.
To sign into the OZG-RE via “Mein Unternehmenskonto”, click on “Login with My Unternehmenskonto ”. Then enter in the field “Zertifikatsdatei ” the ELSTER organisation certificate (which you received when you registered) and enter your password in the field “Passwort” . Once you have confirmed that you agree with the forwarding of your personal data , you will be redirected to the OZG-RE.
Further information on registering with “Mein Unternehmenskonto” can be found on the FAQ page of the “Mein Unternehmenskonto” website (German only).
Yes! In order to be able to transmit invoices via OZG-RE, it is necessary to set up a company account.
Both registration and use of OZG-RE are free of charge for invoice issuers.
Please note that costs may be incurred by the user while using the OZG-RE platform, in particular for the provision, connection and operation of necessary software and hardware as well as for Internet use, which will not be reimbursed by the responsible parties (publisher and technical service provider) of the OZG-RE.
When registering for an OZG-RE account, you will need to provide at least the following information:
Company information:
User information:
You will also need to accept the OZG-RE terms of use.
If your company already has an OZG-RE account, and the administrator just needs to add you as a new user, the following information is required:
If your company prefers to access the OZG-RE via “Mein Unternehmenskonto” (see the FAQ “How do I register to use the OZG-RE?”), the company information stored in “Mein Unternehmenskonto” (e.g. company address) will be automatically transferred to the OZG-RE. Since this method requires identification using an ELSTER certificate, your company information in the OZG-RE will be stored even more securely and accurately. There is also no need to enter your company information separately in the OZG-RE.
To register with “Mein Unternehmenskonto”, the following information is required:
Company information:
Contact person:
User account details:
If you haven’t received an activation link, first check the spam folder of your email account. If there is no activation link there, please contact the help desk of the Bundesdruckerei at sendersupport-xrechnung@bdr.de and request a new link.
If your activation link has expired, please click on the expired activation link in your email. You will be redirected automatically to a web page where you can request a new activation link.
If you are unable to request a new activation link from the web page, please contact the help desk of the Bundesdruckerei at sendersupport-xrechnung@bdr.de to request a new link.
When using the platform, there are three submission channels available to invoice senders for invoices:
For more information about the submission channels, see the OZG-RE technical terms of use.
As an additional transmission channel, the OZG-RE provides the option of sending invoices from the originating software through a transmission via the Peppol network. The submission of e-invoices via Peppol is essentially possible in two different ways:
To submit supporting documents or attachments with your invoice, they must be embedded in the invoice data file and should not be sent separately as an email attachment. Documents of the following file types may be embedded: PDF documents (PDF), Images (PNG, JPEG, JPG), Excel spreadsheets (XLSX), Support and OpenDocument spreadsheets (ODS) and Text files (CSV) as well as XML when using an extension.
You have various options for embedding documents depending on the way you create your invoices and which transmission method you use to submit them to the Online Access Act-compliant Invoice Submission Portal (OZG-RE). Please note that the embedding of supporting documents differs depending on whether the attachments are larger or smaller than 15 MB.
Create new invoice (via web submission)
If you create your electronic invoice manually (using the web submission form), you can manually add supporting documents of the accepted file types to the invoice. In the “Attachments” tab of the Web Entry, you can upload attachments up to 15 MB in size using drag & drop or manual selection. Once the invoice is submitted, the documents are directly embedded in the invoice.
To attach files larger than 15 MB to the invoice, please switch to the “References/Large Attachments” tab. There you can add attachments by reference with a total size of up to 200 MB.
Upload invoice file
You can submit your completed invoice in the XML format using the function “ Upload invoice file”. To attach supporting documents, you must embed them in the XML file encoded in Base64 before uploading your invoice. If you have questions, please contact your software provider regarding the options for embedding documents in electronic invoices.
In the “Large Attachments” administration menu of the OZG-RE, you also have the option to upload attachments with a total size of up to 200 MB and generate a corresponding link. This link can then generally be inserted into the invoice as a reference. Please note that when using the “Submit externally created invoice” function, the total size of all large attachments must not exceed 200 MB.
Transmit via email
You can submit your completed invoice using email. To attach supporting documents, you must embed them in the XML file encoded in Base64 before submitting your invoice.
For more information, contact your software provider to ask about options for embedding documents in electronic invoices.
In the “Large Attachments” administration menu of the OZG-RE, you also have the option to upload attachments with a total size of up to 200 MB and generate a corresponding link. This link can then generally be inserted into the invoice as a reference.
Transmit via Peppol
You can submit your completed invoice using Peppol. To attach supporting documents smaller than 100 MB, they must be Base64-encoded and embedded into the XML before transmitting the invoice.
For more information, contact your software provider to ask about options for embedding documents in electronic invoices.
In the “Large Attachments” administration menu of the OZG-RE, you also have the option to upload attachments with a total size of up to 200 MB and generate a corresponding link. This link can then generally be inserted into the invoice as a reference.
To the terms of use of the OZG-RE.
No. Invoices submitted via the OZG-RE cannot be recalled.
Users can track the current status of their invoice in the log view. If you have submitted an incorrect invoice by mistake, please contact the invoice recipient.
There are no time restrictions on the creation or submission of invoices via the OZG-RE. Maintenance work may result in a short period of unavailability at times however. Upcoming maintenance work will be announced in advance via a pop-up window.
If the company does not have software for viewing locally saved invoices in XML format, a solution can be purchased on the market or developed in house. No solutions can be recommended here.
For each invoice provided via the OZG-RE, the invoice recipient must cover the cost. The amount of this payment is specified in the administrative agreement to be signed.
When creating an electronic invoice (e-invoice), the invoice issuer has the option to give the invoice recipient a discount (reduced price) for early payment within a specified period of time.
Web submission:
If you submit e-invoices using the web submission form on the OZG-RE invoice submission portal, under the tab “Invoice data” you can select the button “Add discount” to add terms for discounts to your invoice.
Example: Payment is due within 30 days. For payment received within 10 days ( discount period), a 2% discount is given on the invoice amount due.
Upload:
Here you will find detailed instructions for including information about discounts when using the upload method for the OZG-RE:
Download document discount upload
Email:
If you use email to transmit your invoice, your completed e-invoice (XML file) must meet the same requirements for information about discounts as described in the paragraph on using the upload method (see “Upload”).
Peppol:
If you use Peppol to transmit your invoice, your completed e-invoice (XML file) must meet the same requirements for information about discounts as described in the paragraph on using the upload transmission method (see “Upload”).
You can track the status of the submitted invoice. To do so, select “View status of submitted invoices” in the Home section.
Depending on the processing status, an invoice can have the following status types: new, delivered, received and rejected.
In this section, you can also continue with a manual invoice entry previously started via web-based data entry.
If payment of a submitted e-invoice is still outstanding after the due date, you should first check the status of that invoice in the OZG-RE. You can do this from the OZG-RE dashboard by clicking “View processing status of submitted invoices”.
We recommend that you only send an overdue payment reminder to the invoice recipient if the status of your submitted e-invoice is marked “Collected”.
If the status of your e-invoice is marked “Rejected”, please investigate possible reasons for this. There are two ways in which a submitted e-invoice can be rejected:
In both cases, the invoice must be corrected and resubmitted. However, please always check the status of your submitted e-invoice before taking any further steps.
The OZG-RE does not currently issue automated email notifications about changes to the status of your submitted e-invoices.
If you send your invoices via Peppol, you must register with the OZG-RE in order to view the status of submitted e-invoices.
In the OZG-RE you can find the status of your submitted e-invoices under “Processing status of submitted XRechnung invoices ”.
The OZG-RE does not currently issue automated email notifications about changes to the status of your submitted e-invoices. A feature that would enable automated email notifications is currently being planned.
For further information on specific status notifications, please refer to the additional FAQs about the OZG-RE below.
The OZG-RE has five different status notifications. They are:
Change password After logging in, navigate to “Personal Settings” via the person icon. You can change your password in this section.
Reset password You can reset your password using the “Forgot password?” function on the OZG-RE homepage by entering your email address. You will receive a link by email which you can use to specify a new password.
The email address can only be changed by the appropriate administrator (in the user management section). Contact your administrator.
First, sign directly into the OZG-RE, then select “Manage company account” from the dropdown menu at the top left of the screen. You can then edit your company information. To save your changes, click on “Update”.
If you have signed into the OZG-RE via “Mein Unternehmenskonto”, the company information you provided there (e.g. company address) will have been automatically transferred to the OZG-RE. If the company information has been transferred in this way, the “Mein Unternehmenskonto” logo will be displayed on the “Manage company account” page of the OZG-RE.
In this case, it will only be possible to edit your company information via the “Mein Unternehmenskonto” user account. The fields for entering company information in the OZG-RE will be locked. It will only be possible to synchronise and update the company information in one direction: from “Mein Unternehmenskonto” to the OZG-RE – not vice versa.
First, sign directly into the OZG-RE, then select “Manage company account” from the dropdown menu at the top left of the screen. You will then have the option to delete your company account, but only if you have administrator rights. Please note that deleting a company account will also delete all the user accounts connected to it. To delete the account, click on “Delete company account”, then confirm by clicking “Delete”.
If you have signed into the OZG-RE via “Mein Unternehmenskonto”, it will not be possible to delete your OZG-RE company account here. Instead, you must delete it via the “Mein Unternehmenskonto” user account.
A support service is available to answer your questions about using the OZG-RE or if you are having issues.
It can be reached by email or by telephone:
Support and service for invoice recipients (authorised users):
(Mon.-Fri. 08:00 AM – 04:00 PM)
Support and service for invoice senders:
(Mon.-Fri. 08:00 AM – 04:00 PM)
Yes. For testing in the test environment, you can use the IBAN DE75512108001245126199, as used for KoSIT test cases.
Information about new features and updates are published through the usual channels, e.g. the e-rechnung-bund.de website and newsletter for authorities of the federal administration. If you wish to receive the e-invoicing newsletter, please contact us at e-rechnung@bescha.bund.de.
If you need further information, you can contact us directly using the contact form. In our media library you will also find video tutorials on how to use the OZG-RE.
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