E-Rechnung (e-invoice)
An E-Rechnung is an invoice issued, transmitted and received in a structured electronic format that a machine can read and process, not a PDF or paper.
In Germany, receiving e-invoices in a structured format has become the baseline for business-to-business trade, with issuing obligations phasing in. A structured invoice carries its data as fields, not pixels, so it can be booked without re-typing.
The common German formats are XRechnung and ZUGFeRD, both built on the EN 16931 European standard. A PDF that only shows an image is not an e-invoice in this sense.
Cortena ingests structured e-invoices (UBL, CII, ZUGFeRD and Factur-X) alongside PDFs and scans in one inbox.