Scope and Limitations

This page lists what invoice-pro does not support, the details of the XML that are fixed, and the Factur-X XMP metadata that Typst cannot write yet.

Scope

• Format: hybrid PDF/A-3 invoices with the XML of Factur-X 1.0.07 / ZUGFeRD 2.3 in the syntax of the UN/CEFACT Cross Industry Invoice (CII), in the profiles MINIMUM, BASIC WL, BASIC, EN 16931 and XRechnung 3.0.
• Not supported: the EXTENDED profile of Factur-X, the UBL syntax (XRechnung is written in CII), and an XML file of its own (see The XML on Its Own).
• Documents: invoices and credit notes, including corrected, prepayment and self-billed invoices (see Document Type). Quotes, delivery notes and other documents that are no invoice have no e-invoice.
• Business terms: some business terms of EN 16931 have no input, e.g. the VAT accounting currency (BT-6, BT-111, see VAT in the National Currency) and additional supporting documents (BG-24). Business Terms lists every term that invoice-pro does not support, with the reason.
• Legal requirements: the rules of invoice-pro check some requirements of the law that the official rules miss (see Rules of invoice-pro), but they are no legal advice: they cannot tell whether your data is right.

Fixed Details

• Business Process URN (BT-23): Whenever using the "en16931" or "xrechnung" profiles, the Business Process context URN is hardcoded to urn:fdc:peppol.eu:2017:poacc:billing:01:1.0 (standard billing transaction).
• EAS Scheme Fallback: If the prefix of a party's VAT ID has no known scheme and neither a custom electronic-address nor an email address is specified, the electronic address block is omitted from the XML payload.
• Plain Text: Names, addresses and references given as content are written as their plain text; formatting is dropped.

The XML on Its Own

invoice-pro attaches the XML to the PDF and writes no separate file. XRechnung is primarily exchanged as the XML file itself: if a recipient asks for an XRechnung, extract the XML from the PDF, e.g. with pdfdetach -saveall invoice.pdf of the poppler utilities, or with Mustang (step 2 below).

Factur-X XMP Metadata

A Factur-X / ZUGFeRD PDF announces its XML in the XMP metadata of the PDF, with the Factur-X extension schema (fx:DocumentType, fx:DocumentFileName, fx:Version and fx:ConformanceLevel). Typst cannot write custom XMP metadata yet, so invoice-pro cannot add these entries. This is a limitation of the Typst platform, not of the invoice data:

• The embedded XML (factur-x.xml, or xrechnung.xml in the XRechnung profile) is complete and valid for its profile. Most receiving systems only extract and process this XML.
• Validators that check the PDF itself reject it. The Mustang validator, for example, reports XMP Metadata: ConformanceLevel not found together with the missing DocumentType, DocumentFileName and Version, and rates the PDF (not the XML) as invalid.

invoice-pro will write the metadata as soon as Typst supports custom XMP metadata (typst/typst#5667). It is prepared already: tools/zugferd/xmp.typ of the repository builds the Factur-X metadata of every profile (the document type INVOICE, the name of the attached XML, the version 1.0 and the conformance level MINIMUM, BASIC WL, BASIC, EN 16931 or XRECHNUNG) together with the PDF/A description of its extension schema, and a test compares it with the metadata that Mustang writes (see below). The package does not ship it until Typst can write the metadata, so it costs no compile time.

:::info Optional post-processing, outside the package You do not need any of this to create an invoice, and invoice-pro does not run external tools. If a recipient requires a PDF that passes the Factur-X PDF check, you can add the metadata afterwards with the Mustang command line tool, which needs Java: download Mustang-CLI-2.14.0.jar from the Mustang releases and run it with java -jar. The steps below were tested with Mustang CLI 2.14.0. :::

# 1. Compile the invoice as usual.
typst compile --pdf-standard=a-3b invoice.typ invoice.pdf

# 2. Extract the XML that invoice-pro embedded.
java -jar Mustang-CLI-2.14.0.jar --action extract \
  --source invoice.pdf --out invoice.xml

# 3. Embed it again together with the Factur-X XMP metadata. The profile
#    letter must match the profile of the invoice (see the table below).
java -jar Mustang-CLI-2.14.0.jar --action combine \
  --source invoice.pdf --source-xml invoice.xml --out invoice-facturx.pdf \
  --format fx --version 1 --profile E --no-additional-attachments

# 4. Check the result: PDF, XML and the summary must be "valid".
java -jar Mustang-CLI-2.14.0.jar --action validate --source invoice-facturx.pdf

zugferd profile of the invoice	--profile
"minimum"	M
"basic-wl"	W
"basic"	B
"en16931"	E
"xrechnung"	X

With zugferd: auto, use the profile the invoice was written in: X if the guideline ID of the XML (BT-24) ends in xrechnung_3.0, otherwise E. --format fx --version 1 writes the metadata of Factur-X 1.0, which ZUGFeRD 2.1 and later use as well. For X, Mustang names the XML xrechnung.xml, as invoice-pro does, and replaces it with the same XML, so the PDF carries it once. XRechnung is primarily exchanged as the XML file itself: if a recipient asks for an XRechnung, you can send invoice.xml from step 2.