Problem with electronic PDF invoice (EN16931)

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1

Hi everybody!

I’m based in Germany. My tax advisor has recently started sending PDF invoices in the new EU standard EN 16931 (ZUGFeRD, XRechnung), which basically is a PDF/A-3U with an embedded xml, which contains the e-invoice data. So far, so good.

Now I’ve received an invoice which not only included an xml, but also an embedded PDF file, which contains additional details that help understand the invoice. The problem is that it’s not that easy to view this additional PDF. MacOS’s standard PDF viewer does not even show that embedded PDF exists, neither does another PDF viewer I have installed. Only Acrobat Reader can display it by clicking on a paper clip icon, which reveals a list of the embedded documents.

Needless to say: DEVONthink also doesn’t seem to be aware of the embedded PDF as well, so neither can I see there’s an embedded PDF, nor can I open or read it, nor is it added to the index. The main PDF itself still contains all information after import in DT, so if I right-click it in DT and then choose to open it in Acrobat Reader, I can see the embedded file.

The only workaround I am aware of is opening the embedded PDF in Acrobat Reader, saving it as a separate file, importing this file in DEVONthink and then linking it to the original file. But that’s cumbersome. (I’m a noob when it comes to Automation… unfortunately.)

Are you aware of this issue and is there a plan to handle such files in DT3/DT4?

2

macOS’ PDFKit framework doesn’t support the complete PDF specification, therefore neither Preview.app nor DEVONthink are currently able to support this.

1 Like
3

You can probably still store the documents in DEVONthink and use DEVONthink’s “open with …” feature to open up with an app that your tax advisor recommends and/or works.

4

Yes, that works, thank you. But since the embedded document is not indexable by DT, I’ll have to go the extra mile and import it as a separate document.