German VAT Return (UStVA) and EC Sales List from GrandTotal
GrandTotal hands the German advance VAT return (Umsatzsteuer-Voranmeldung, UStVA) and the EC Sales List (Zusammenfassende Meldung, ZM) directly to Steuererklärung.app, which submits them to the tax office via ELSTER. Key figures and ZM lines are pre-calculated from your invoices and credit notes – nothing is typed into a form by hand.
You find both under Send to → Steuererklärung (UStVA) and Steuererklärung (ZM): pick the period, GrandTotal opens Steuererklärung.app with the finished figures and places a summary on your Desktop for review.
UStVA
Your sales are routed into the correct key figures by tax rate and tax category – from 19 %, 7 % and 0 % to intra-Community supplies, exports and reverse charge (§ 13b). Choose accrual (by invoices) or cash basis (by payments received), per month or quarter.
EC Sales List
The ZM (§ 18a UStG) lists EU B2B turnover per customer and VAT ID: intra-Community supplies and reverse-charge services, credit notes offset. Per month, quarter or calendar year – it has its own deadlines, hence its own menu entry.
Input VAT from Inbound Invoices
If GrandTotal also receives your inbound invoices, the input VAT (box 66) goes into the UStVA as well: the VAT stated on all domestic inbound documents of the period, inbound credit notes offset. If a document is only partially deductible – mixed use, for example – enter the deductible amount in the Deductible input VAT field on the document's info tab; 0 excludes it. Foreign and reverse-charge documents are not taken over automatically but listed in the review summary.
Requirements
- Steuererklärung.app version 4 or later.
- Correctly assigned tax categories on your tax rates. Tax-free rates need the matching exemption – without it, the turnover lands in the wrong UStVA box and is missing from the ZM entirely.
- For the ZM: the customer's VAT ID in the client record – invoices without a usable ID are listed in the review summary.
Name and address come from your company profile. Steuererklärung.app fills in the ELSTER tax number from your last successful submission.
Without inbound invoices GrandTotal transfers the sales side only – add input VAT in the app in that case. Triangular supplies cannot be detected; recode the affected ZM lines there. Run the plausibility check before submitting.
At a Glance
Two filings
UStVA and ZM, one Send-to entry each
Submission
Steuererklärung.app → ELSTER
Accrual or cash
UStVA by invoices issued or payments received
Periods
UStVA: month, quarter – ZM: also calendar year
Input VAT
Box 66 from domestic inbound documents, overridable per document
Review summary
All transferred figures on your Desktop