German Chapter / DATEV Connector

Continuing the discussion from ERPNext-Event in Wiesbaden, Germany with Rushabh Mehta and Faris Ansari from Frappe:

there where 2 things I’d like to follow up upon

  1. formation of a german chapter
  2. inittiating an interest group for creation of an adapter enableiing easy export of accounting data over to DATEV (which is accounting software most tax advisors/consultants will use in Germany and likewise demand data to be transferred to them in that format)

I am pretty happy to take a lead on those project(s) and would suggest at first for everyone who is interested in joining either one of those efforts to post his/her interest here in this topic.

I’ll figure out a way to organize this (under the hood of the Foundation, I assume) in the coming days.
Would be great to keep the momentum going

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ideally everyone interested would just send a quick response message here mentioned interest of joining which of the 2 initiatives. Likewise we can refer to this Topic to create get people on board once an organisational vessel is created.

Speaking of tools … I am very much in favor of ERPNext ‘native’ tools (forum, github, i.e.) rather then slack, google, telegram, … if they serve the purpose of steering collaborative efforts.

I am interested both in interacting with German ERPNext users and developing a solution for DATEV. It is definitely on the roadmap for our team. We’ll start with imports and exports though.

Happy to join in here! :+1:

Thank you Gunnar for picking up on this. I am happy to help with forming a german chapter. I found @Martin_Seibert very inspiring and has reassured me to put more resources toward the ERPNext project and a taking part in forming a german chapter as you mentioned.

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I would welcome an easy way to reach German ERPNext users with Germany-specific challenges. DATEV and automatic access to bank accounts are probably two good examples.

Here is an official document from DATEV about Import and Export.

YESSSSS, JAAAAA

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A somewhat more international angle: Revolut does offer credit cards. Both physical and virtual ones (for one-time-transactions). They have an API.

We use these cards for our travelling consultants. I would like to connect the card to the expense claim process in ERPNext one day. That would make a lot of things much easier here …

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Surely the CSV export is an easy point to start, but did anybody think about using DATEVConnect online yet?

It is offered specifically for connecting ERP-Systems and seems like an expensive subscription, but much more comfortable than handling CSV files.

Or a more utopic thought: make an ERPNext app for tax consultants and convince them use to ERPNext themselves. :grin:

Hi @Martin_Seibert, @becht_robert ,

as for bank integration, have you see ERPNextSwiss? It is an app extension to ERPNext which adds ISO 20022 functionality such as pain.001, pain.008 and camt transfer files (and also some Switzerland-specific csv-converters for bank transactions)…

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Yes, I am familiar with the bank functionality of ErpnextSwiss,…and hope that it will be extended to the rest of Europe…World…

@lasalesi @becht_robert would u say the erpnextswiss app could serve as a starting point for the endeavour of developing a DATEV connector?

@lasalesi have u ever considered to put this under the umbrealla of the corecode? there is a module named “regional” in the core where this could live and, as I understand, would only be applied for companies that are setup with the ‘Switzerland’ location. Thus far there are existing regional modules for India, France, Saudi Arabia & United Arab Emirates.

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@becht_robert @lasalesi @dominik we are planning a group livecall for the new German Chapter which in part will be touching the DATEV Connector development.

Wed, Dec 5, 3 pm seems to be the time of choice thus far. Do you want to join in on the DATEV part? If so give me a shoutout and I’ll keep you in the loop

I think it is definitely worth to talk to the Swiss, and many of them speak German.
As far I understand the Datev connector is for bookkeeping/accounting as it is a dominant player in germany,

That is different from functionality to link to a bank and or read bankstatements…I understand there is some functionality in v12.0 in this regard

robert

Hi @vrms,

we would certainly be open to use ERPNextSwiss as starting point for DATEV.

Integrating the app into the core code has been discussed (see Merge to ERPNext Core? · Issue #17 · libracore/erpnextswiss · GitHub). There are two main issues: (1) we need to be able to quickly (i.e. less than 24h) release hotfixes and the like, as this app is in use with most of our customer base. We cannot allow for long (and for this matter unrelated) hurdles to merge code. (2) already now, the app is also used outside of Switzerland (e.g. CAMT/pain/pincode). Therefore, the regional restriction might be unfavourable.

@becht_robert: I agree - as far as I understand DATEV it is closer to an exchange format that we have here for a local accounting software rather than banking integration. This is used to export general ledger data as xml to external accountants or tax reviewers.

@Martin_Seibert please add @lasalesi @becht_robert to the group call tomorrow Dec 5th, 3:00 pm (or send them invitations whatever is needed).

I have added another participant to the call who contacted me in search for the GER Chapter. #muhaha

Hi, where do i find the link for the call…rgds

I will share it shortly before the meeting.