XRechnung (German national rules)

BR-DE-2: Seller contact (BG-6) missing

XRechnung requires a seller contact point with phone number and e-mail address.

Fact sheet

Rule
BR-DE-2
Severity
Error – the invoice is invalid
Rule set
XRechnung 3.0 (KoSIT)
Affected fields
BG-6, BT-41, BT-42, BT-43
Syntax
CII & UBL

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Official wording

[BR-DE-2] Die Gruppe "SELLER CONTACT" (BG-6) muss übermittelt werden.

Source: official KoSIT Schematron for XRechnung 3.0.

What the rule requires

XRechnung requires a seller contact (BG-6) so that the recipient can reach someone with questions. The group alone is not enough: three follow-up rules make its fields mandatory as well.

  • Contact point (BT-41) – a person or a department, rule BR-DE-5
  • Telephone number (BT-42) – with at least three digits, rules BR-DE-6 and BR-DE-27
  • E-mail address (BT-43) – with exactly one @ sign, rules BR-DE-7 and BR-DE-28

Common causes

  • The contact details only appear in the letterhead or footer of the PDF.
  • The software takes the contact from the user profile – for automatically generated invoices it is empty.
  • The buyer contact (BG-9) was filled instead of the seller contact.
  • The group exists but phone or e-mail is missing – then the validator reports BR-DE-6 or BR-DE-7.

What it looks like in XML

In CII, the contact belongs to the seller party, before the postal address:

✗ CII – missing
<ram:SellerTradeParty>
    <ram:Name>Muster GmbH</ram:Name>
    <ram:PostalTradeAddress>…</ram:PostalTradeAddress>
</ram:SellerTradeParty>
✓ CII – correct
<ram:SellerTradeParty>
    <ram:Name>Muster GmbH</ram:Name>
    <ram:DefinedTradeContact>
        <ram:PersonName>Erika Mustermann</ram:PersonName>
        <ram:TelephoneUniversalCommunication>
            <ram:CompleteNumber>+49 30 1234567</ram:CompleteNumber>
        </ram:TelephoneUniversalCommunication>
        <ram:EmailURIUniversalCommunication>
            <ram:URIID>accounts@muster.de</ram:URIID>
        </ram:EmailURIUniversalCommunication>
    </ram:DefinedTradeContact>
    <ram:PostalTradeAddress>…</ram:PostalTradeAddress>
</ram:SellerTradeParty>

In UBL it is cac:AccountingSupplierParty/cac:Party/cac:Contact with cbc:Name, cbc:Telephone and cbc:ElectronicMail.

Fix in C#

In the Facturexa Creator one call sets all three fields. A shared address such as the accounts department is usually better than an individual.

C#
invoice.SetSellerDefinedTradeContact(
    name: "Erika Mustermann",                  // BT-41, or departmentName: "Accounts"
    emailAddress: "accounts@muster.de",        // BT-43
    telephoneCompleteNumber: "+49 30 1234567"); // BT-42

Related rules

All explained validation rules