Guide

Invoice Settings Setup: Configure Faktwise for Shopify

Updated 2026-07-02

Once Faktwise is installed, your first stop is the Settings page. This is where you enter, once, everything that belongs on your invoices: your company block, your VAT ID or German tax number, your bank details, and a few toggles for special cases such as the Kleinunternehmer scheme or OSS. It only takes a few minutes, and this guide walks through the form field by field. One thing before we start, because it matters more than anything else on the page: invoicing only begins after your first save. Until you save the settings once, Faktwise generates no invoices, and paid orders are skipped without a message.

The Faktwise settings form with the required invoice fields

Why German invoices need this data

The legal basis is § 14 UStG, the section of the German VAT Act that lists what a proper invoice must contain. Among other things, that is your full legal name, your address, and your tax number or VAT ID. Faktwise prints all of this on every invoice automatically, but you have to provide it once, and that is exactly what the Settings form is for.

Required fields: your company block

Faktwise will not create an invoice until these are filled in:

Optional fields that unlock XRechnung

Next come fields that are optional but worth filling in: a contact email, a phone number, IBAN and BIC, and a free-text line for your payment terms, for example “Payable within 14 days”. Bank details and payment terms appear on the invoice and save your customers a question.

Two of these fields do double duty: contact email and IBAN unlock XRechnung for public-sector orders. XRechnung is the XML invoice format that German public-sector buyers normally require. You recognize those orders by the Leitweg-ID, a routing code public institutions use to deliver incoming invoices internally. The XRechnung standard, through its BR-DE rules, requires the seller’s contact and payment details. If email or IBAN are missing, Faktwise issues a Leitweg-ID order as a ZUGFeRD invoice instead (a PDF with embedded XML data) and shows a notice on the dashboard. The invoice is not lost, but the institution does not get the format it expects, so it is best to fill in both fields right away. For the bigger picture, see our guide to XRechnung with Shopify.

The toggles, one by one

Kleinunternehmer (§ 19 UStG)

Kleinunternehmer is the German small-business scheme under § 19 UStG: businesses using it do not charge VAT on their invoices. With this toggle on, none of your Faktwise invoices show VAT; instead, Faktwise automatically prints the note German law requires on such invoices. Whether the scheme applies to you depends on your revenue, so check with your tax advisor if you are unsure.

OSS (One-Stop-Shop)

OSS, the One-Stop-Shop, is the EU procedure that lets you report VAT on sales to consumers in other EU countries through a single return instead of registering in every country. Only switch this on if you are actually registered for OSS. With the toggle on, Faktwise charges the standard VAT rate of the destination country on those consumer sales. Joining OSS is your decision; Faktwise never activates the procedure on its own. Our guide to EU OSS VAT with Shopify explains the procedure in detail.

Goods or services as the default

Here you set whether your shop sells goods or services by default. It looks minor, but it decides the tax treatment of B2B sales to other EU countries. Services sold to business customers in other EU countries fall under the reverse charge mechanism: instead of you charging VAT, your customer accounts for it in their own country, and the invoice carries the required note. Goods shipped to such customers are treated as intra-Community supplies, also without VAT and with their own legal wording. Faktwise prints the correct wording automatically in each case. When a customer provides an EU VAT ID, Faktwise checks it live against VIES, the EU’s VAT number confirmation system, at invoice time; if VIES is unreachable, Faktwise charges VAT as the cautious default. For the full logic, see B2B invoices with VAT ID and reverse charge on Shopify.

Automation: invoice and email

Two toggles control what happens on its own. Automatic invoicing on paid orders is on by default: as soon as an order is paid, the invoice is created without you doing anything. The automatic email that sends the invoice PDF to your customer is off by default; if you switch it on, Faktwise sends the PDF using a German or English template once the order is paid.

Invoice language

Finally, choose whether your invoices are generated in German or English.

Your first save switches invoicing on

Once more, because it is the most common stumble during setup: the first save completes onboarding. Before that, Faktwise creates no invoices, and paid orders are skipped silently. After it, every paid order automatically gets a readable PDF plus a ZUGFeRD file, a PDF/A-3 with the same invoice data embedded as machine-readable XML under the EU standard EN 16931. If the order carries a Leitweg-ID, Faktwise issues an XRechnung instead, provided your contact email and IBAN are in place; if they are not, you get the ZUGFeRD fallback and a dashboard notice. Invoice numbers run sequentially without gaps per year, for example INV-2026-00042.

That is the whole setup: fill in the company block, review the toggles, save. For questions about which scheme applies to your business, whether Kleinunternehmer, OSS, or anything else, talk to your tax advisor, because Faktwise is software, not tax advice. Open Settings, save your invoice data, and let your next paid order become your first automatic invoice. Not using Faktwise yet? Install it from the Shopify App Store and walk back through this guide.