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E-invoice inbox

A private forwarding address that turns supplier e-invoices into draft expenses

The E-invoice inbox (Settings → Accounting → E-invoice inbox) gives you one private email address — belege-<token>@cine-power-planner.com — that you forward incoming supplier e-invoices to. Each forwarded ZUGFeRD/Factur-X PDF or XRechnung/UBL/CII/Facturae XML is parsed on the server, and your app turns it into a draft in Expenses the next time it syncs, with the original file kept as the attachment for GoBD. The inbox needs cloud sync to be on. This is the inbound channel only: it receives e-invoices your suppliers send you. Creating and sending your own e-invoices is handled in the invoice editor.

What the E-invoice inbox is for

A receiving channel: forward a supplier's e-invoice by email and it becomes a draft expense automatically.

  • Each account has one private inbox address of the form belege-<token>@cine-power-planner.com, where the token is a random string unique to you.
  • Forward a supplier e-invoice to that address and the server parses it, stores the original file and queues the invoice for you. The next time your app syncs, it creates the draft expense, encrypted on your device like every other expense, with the file attached.
  • Structured e-invoices are read into fields (supplier, amount, VAT, invoice number); a plain PDF or image with no embedded e-invoice still arrives as a draft, marked for manual entry.
  • This is inbound only — receiving invoices from your suppliers. It does not send invoices; creating and emailing your own e-invoices lives in the invoice editor.
Tips
  • Drafts are never posted automatically — every forwarded invoice waits in Expenses for you to review and confirm.
  • Open the panel from Settings → Accounting → E-invoice inbox.
  • The inbox needs cloud sync. With cloud sync off, mail to your address is dropped, because your app would never collect it.

Your private inbox address

The panel shows your address with Copy and Rotate actions.

  1. Open Settings → Accounting → E-invoice inbox; your address is created on first visit and shown in the read-only field.
  2. Click 'Copy' to put the address on your clipboard, then paste it where you need it.
  3. Hand the address to a supplier, or set up an auto-forward rule in your own mailbox so their invoices reach it.
Tips
  • The address is the same every time until you rotate it — you can safely save it as a forwarding target.
  • The address can be re-displayed at any time; you don't need to write it down.
Common Pitfalls
  • Treating the address like a secret password — it isn't one. Its reach is limited to creating draft expenses on your account, and you can rotate it away if it ever leaks.

Forwarding an invoice

What the channel accepts and how a forwarded email becomes a draft.

  • Forward the email with the invoice attached; the server reads the attachments, not the message body.
  • Recognized structured formats: ZUGFeRD / Factur-X (hybrid PDF with embedded XML), XRechnung and other UBL invoices and credit notes, CII, and Facturae.
  • A hybrid PDF is read from its embedded XML; a bare invoice XML works too.
  • Up to 10 attachments per email are processed, each up to 12 MB.
  • A plain PDF or photo (JPEG/PNG) with no embedded e-invoice still creates a draft, labelled 'E-invoice email — needs manual entry', with the file attached so you can type the figures in by hand.
Common Pitfalls
  • Forwarding only a link to download the invoice — the channel needs the invoice as a file attachment, not a link.
  • Forwarding the same invoice twice: when your app picks up a structured invoice you already have (same seller VAT ID and invoice number, or invoice number and total), it skips it silently; a plain-PDF draft has no key to match on, so a re-forward can create a second draft.
  • Expecting a price or category to be filled in for a plain-PDF/photo draft — only structured e-invoices populate the fields.

What you get in Expenses

Forwarded invoices appear as draft expenses you review, complete, and confirm.

  • Structured invoices arrive pre-filled: supplier name and address, gross amount, net and VAT, the dominant VAT rate, invoice number, and the due date when present — plus the full multi-rate breakdown and line items kept on the record.
  • Each one is a draft flagged as a supplier bill (Eingangsrechnung), so it is listed under 'Bills' in the Receipts / Bills toggle at the top of Accounting → Expenses, not under 'Receipts'.
  • The category is only suggested, never assigned — you pick it when you review the draft. Reverse-charge invoices are flagged accordingly.
  • A non-EUR invoice is brought in at the stated amounts with no automatic exchange-rate lookup, and is flagged so you can set the rate yourself.
  • Credit notes are recognized and carried as a negative expense so your supplier totals net out.
  • The original file (and, for a hybrid PDF, the extracted XML) is stored as the attachment for your records.
Common Pitfalls
  • Waiting for a notification — there is no push or alert when an invoice arrives. New drafts show up in Expenses after your app next syncs, usually when you open it, so check there after forwarding.
  • Advisory checks (missing invoice number, totals that don't add up, no due date) are surfaced as non-blocking review flags; a readable invoice is never rejected over them.

Rotating the address (security)

If the address is shared too widely or starts attracting unwanted mail, rotate it.

  • Only you can read your own inbox address; it is tied to your account.
  • The address grants nothing beyond creating draft expenses — it can't read your data, post anything, or pay anything.
  • Rotating is the kill switch: once rotated, anything sent to the old address is silently dropped.
  • Until your app picks it up, a forwarded invoice waits on the server unencrypted, like mail in a mailbox. On its next sync the app encrypts it into a draft and the server copy of the invoice data is erased; the original file stays in your private receipts storage.
  • A message that could not be processed (no usable attachment, no valid inbox address, or flagged as spam) is set aside on the mail server and deleted there 30 days after it arrived. Processed mail is deleted right after it is handed over.
  1. In the E-invoice inbox panel, click 'Rotate'.
  2. Confirm in the dialog — the current address stops working immediately and a brand-new one is issued.
  3. Update any supplier or mailbox forwarding rule that still points at the old address.
Common Pitfalls
  • Rotating and forgetting to update your forwarding rules — invoices sent to the retired address are dropped without notice.
See also

Think of the E-invoice inbox as a one-way intake: forward a supplier's e-invoice to your private belege- address (with cloud sync on) and your app turns it into a draft in Expenses on its next sync — structured invoices pre-filled, plain PDFs flagged for manual entry, the original always attached. Nothing posts on its own and nothing pings you, so review new drafts in Expenses, and rotate the address whenever you want to retire it.

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