Ledger groups instead of one big folder
Bookkeeping does not think in files but in ledger groups: incoming invoices, outgoing invoices, cash, bank. If the filename already carries that group, nobody has to open each PDF to assign it. A pattern such as period_client_ledgergroup_documentnumber puts the folder into the order in which the entries will be posted anyway. For handover to a receipt platform such as DATEV Unternehmen online that makes a noticeable difference: the pre-sorting is done before the first document is uploaded.
The rhythm is the tenth of the following month
German VAT returns are due by the tenth of the following month, or correspondingly later with a permanent filing extension. That rhythm sets the workload in the practice, and in the days before it documents arrive in bulk. If you write the period numerically in the filename, 2024-03 rather than March 2024, you get a sort order that holds up in the file manager and does not break across year ends. Quarter labels such as 2024-Q1 follow the same principle for clients filing quarterly.
Assessments do not belong in the receipt folder
Tax assessments, objection decisions and audit orders follow a different logic than receipts. What counts here is not the posting month but the type of tax and the assessment period: an income tax assessment for 2023 that arrives in November 2025 belongs to 2023. A naming pattern with tax type and assessment year, plus the date of the notice, keeps the two apart. What remains critical is the one-month objection period after notification, which belongs in your deadline control, not in a filename.
Record-keeping rules: a filename is not an archive
German record-keeping principles require traceability, completeness and immutability of documents subject to retention. A descriptive filename does not satisfy that, but it does make assignment and search easier at the preparatory stage. Retention periods under section 147 of the Fiscal Code apply regardless: books and annual accounts must be kept for ten years, received commercial and business letters for six. The audit-proof archive remains the job of your document management system. Filery works upstream of it, so nothing unlabelled arrives there.
Client data and the path of the analysis
Technically the process is unremarkable: the PDF is opened and read on the practice computer, the text content goes encrypted to the AI analysis, and only the detected details of sender, date and document type come back. Renaming then takes place on the device again, and the documents are not kept in storage. Tax advisors are bound by professional confidentiality under section 203 of the Criminal Code, so engaging a service provider needs to be covered contractually. For practices that want to control the analysis route themselves, the Custom plan with your own API keys costs 5 euros a month.
Set it up once, use it every month
You define the naming pattern once and then apply it to whole folders. After the morning scanning batch the folder runs through, you check the suggestions and confirm them. Till receipts, fuel slips and phone photos of invoices often have no text layer, which is what the optional OCR is for. The rename history in the app shows what a file was called before, for when a client asks or a receipt turns out to belong in a different month.
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