Finances

Only the owner sees the finances. Four tabs: Quotes, Invoices, Payment reminders and Subscriptions. VentionDesk calculates all amounts in cents; rounding happens in exactly one place — line item to net, then VAT on the net amount.

Number ranges

Invoice numbers are sequential and without gaps (§ 14 UStG, German VAT Act). That is why a draft has no number: a deleted draft with a number would tear exactly the gap the number range is meant to prevent.

Invoices

At the top are the key figures “Open”, “Overdue”, “Paid” and “Unbilled”, below them “Unbilled per project” with “Bill” per project.

Creating an invoice

• “+ New invoice”: customer, project, service period (or “Service date equals invoice date”), payment term and VAT. Under “After creating” you choose “As draft”, “Finalise & send” or “Finalise & book as paid”.
• “Bill from hours”: project, “Up to and including”, payment term, VAT, then “Create draft”. Every open, billable time entry becomes its own line item with date and activity; the service period follows from the entries. Without an hourly rate set for the customer, no draft is created.

VAT: 19 % or 7 %. 0 % exists only as reverse charge for business customers in another EU country with a VAT ID. VentionDesk does not support the small business scheme (Kleinunternehmerregelung).

E-invoice: VentionDesk creates invoices as PDFs with the mandatory details under § 14 UStG. The structured e-invoice (EN 16931, e.g. ZUGFeRD) is not built in yet. In Germany, issuing one for invoices to domestic businesses becomes mandatory from 2027 if your previous year's turnover exceeded EUR 800,000, and from 2028 for everyone — as long as it is missing here, you need a different tool for it.

From draft to paid invoice

A click on an invoice opens the side panel.

• Draft: “Finalise”, “Edit”, “Delete draft”. Finalising assigns the number, locks the invoice against changes and stores the PDF as the document.
• Finalised: “Send” or “Send again”, “Open document” (PDF), “Mark as paid” — what is booked is the open remainder, not the gross amount, so that a partial payment does not turn into an overpayment —, “Payment reminder” (no fee, not a reminder level) and “Cancel”.
• Cancelling requires a reason and whether the service was provided; a cancellation document is created, which you can send to the customer. A finalised invoice is never deleted, only cancelled.
• Paid via Stripe: “Refund via Stripe” refunds at Stripe; the refund is booked as soon as Stripe confirms it.

Payment link via Stripe

If Stripe is connected and the webhook is set up, every invoice email and every invoice document carries a payment link (/pay/…). It takes your customer to Stripe’s payment page for the open amount; the money goes to your Stripe account, and VentionDesk books the payment on the invoice. Without a complete connection, the side panel says what is missing (“No payment link: …”). With a test key there is only “Copy payment link (test mode)”.

Annual export

Choose a year, “Annual export”: a ZIP for your tax adviser with CSV files for invoices, line items, payments, payment reminders, quotes and cancellations, and all documents as PDF.

Payment reminders

The dunning run checks the overdue invoices every night and sets the level that is due:

Default interest: nine percentage points above the base interest rate (Settings › Finances), calculated to the day on the open amount. The run only decides — it sets the level and creates the payment reminder; sending is done by hand with the button of the due level, for example “Send reminder” or “Send 1st payment reminder”. With the “Automatic” switch in the “Dunning run” header you turn the nightly run on or off. “Payment received” records the open amount as a payment after a confirmation. There is deliberately no button for debt collection — that step lies outside VentionDesk.

Quotes

“New quote”: title, “Valid until”, customer or prospect (not yet a customer) and optionally a project, then “Create draft”. The number is assigned on sending. Depending on the status: “Send quote”, “Mark as sent”, “Order placed”, “Declined”, “Follow up”, “Create project and accept”, “Bill 50 % deposit”, “PDF” and “Delete”. The pipeline at the top shows how many quotes are in which status.

An agent key with quotes:write creates quote drafts in its projects (the recipient is the project’s customer), changes them including line items and deletes them again. Sending, accepting, declining and “Create project and accept” stay with you — the database does not let it take a draft any further.

Subscriptions

For recurring services such as maintenance or hosting. “+ New subscription”: customer, service, net amount, interval (monthly or quarterly), first billing and what happens on the date — “Create draft” or “Remind only”. On the date, the nightly run creates an invoice draft; finalising and sending are done by hand. On the card: “Bill now”, “Pause” and “Resume”. At the top is the recurring revenue per month.

Email texts

You adjust the texts of the emails for invoice, payment reminder, dunning notice, cancellation and quote under Settings › Email templates.