SAP Document and Reporting Compliance (DRC)

The e-invoicing requirement will be implemented in three steps:

• Effective January 1, 2025: Companies in Germany must be able to receive electronic invoices in a structured format – for example, via a simple email address.
• Effective January 1, 2027: Companies with prior-year revenue of €800,000 or more have to send such invoices in the XRechnung or ZUGFeRD format actively.
• Effective January 1, 2028: The requirement to send electronic invoices applies to all companies in domestic B2B transactions. Invoices sent abroad are not yet affected by this requirement.

In short: You should be technically prepared by 2025; in 2027, many companies will be required to actively send these invoices; and by 2028, the requirement will apply to everyone. Starting early reduces project pressure and helps avoid stopgap solutions.

Starting January 1, 2027, an invoice that does not comply with the required electronic format under Section 14 of the German Value-Added Tax Act (UStG) will be considered invalid. This has direct consequences:

• Invoice recipients may not be able to pay these “other invoices” – resulting in delayed or lost sales.
• Business relationships come under strain; in extreme cases, you may lose customers.
• Particularly critical: Input tax credits cannot be deducted on invalid invoices.

All in all, this creates significant liquidity risks – potentially leading to the risk of insolvency if errors accumulate or remain undetected for a long time.​

SAP Document and Reporting Compliance is the standard SAP solution that allows you to create, send, receive, process, and validate electronic invoices – all fully integrated into your SAP processes. This ensures your system remains “Clean Core” compliant: From sales orders through invoicing to payment settlement, SAP DRC maps the entire order-to-cash process in a single system.

Key differences from many third-party solutions:

• SAP standard instead of isolated solutions – you remain within the familiar SAP environment.
• Internationally deployable in over 60 countries and connected to networks such as Peppol.
• The “R” in DRC stands for reporting: In addition to e-invoicing, SAP DRC also covers legal statutory reporting requirements, such as advance VAT return via Elster or withholding tax reports.

SAP continuously updates SAP DRC to include new legal requirements, so you benefit from a product that evolves alongside regulatory changes.​

SAP DRC is flexible: It runs on S/4HANA and on SAP ECC 6.0 starting with EHP1. It generally makes sense to use it on ECC starting with EHP8, because older versions offer only a limited range of functions. Additionally, SAP ECC systems primarily support e-invoicing. 

In practice, this means:

• With S/4HANA, you can implement both e-invoicing and e-reporting.
• On an ECC basis, you implement e-invoicing, while reporting is largely left out.

SAP DRC is operated as a cloud solution via the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP). This allows us to reliably connect on-premises systems via a cloud connector—without disrupting your core system.​

SAP DRC is not automatically included in the S/4HANA license scope. Additional licensing costs apply for its use. You can generally use the SAP Business Technology Platform free of charge. For the SAP DRC software, you need separate licenses, either directly from SAP or through an implementation partner – such as adesso. Licensing is based on annual blocks of 10,000 electronic documents. As the volume of documents increases, the price per individual electronic invoice decreases. This makes costs easy to calculate, even at large scales.​

The technical hub is the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP):

• Your invoices flow from the ERP system into the BTP,
• where they are validated,
• and then transmitted to customers, tax authorities, or the Peppol network.

SAP DRC, Cloud Edition already comes with central, preconfigured APIs for many national e-invoicing and statutory reporting platforms. As a result, for example, the Peppol connection is fully integrated, and a Peppol ID can be created directly in the BTP in just a few minutes.

Interfaces for numerous other – particularly new – country requirements are already prepared and often only need to be activated.​

Over the past few years, adesso business consulting has built up extensive experience with SAP DRC projects: ranging from single-country rollouts at family-owned businesses to globally phased rollouts as part of company-wide templates.

We have already implemented solutions in more than a dozen countries, including Germany, France, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, and Mexico, as well as e-reporting in the U.S. and Canada.

Our approach goes beyond the purely technical:

• adesso business consulting supports you with subject matter expertise and change management,
• addresses uncertainties related to e-invoicing and e-reporting
• and ensures that your teams can use the new solution confidently in their day-to-day work.

Are you looking for an implementation partner with hands-on experience in multiple countries? Reach out to us – we’ll discuss your requirements and share specific project examples from successful SAP DRC implementations.

For even more in-depth technical knowledge and up-to-date insights into country-specific requirements and legal regulations, check out our blog. There you’ll find additional articles and concrete real-world examples.​