# Steuerbuch User Guide

Welcome to Steuerbuch, your personal tax assistant for Austrian VAT and bookkeeping. This guide walks you through every part of the app, from your first login to filing your VAT advance return (UVA). It is written for people who are not accountants — if a term sounds unfamiliar, check the FAQ for a plain-language explanation.

📸 Throughout the guide you'll see lines like ![Screenshot: Dashboard overview](./images/dashboard.png). These are placeholders — drop the real screenshots into docs/user_docs/images/ using the same filename and they'll render automatically.

# Table of contents

1. What is Steuerbuch?
2. Getting started
3. Dashboard tour
4. Uploading & managing invoices
5. Outgoing invoices
6. Collective invoices
7. Delivery notes
8. Clients
9. Folders
10. Stock & inventory
11. Depreciation & assets
12. Reports
    • UVA (VAT advance return)
    • E/A report (Einnahmen-Ausgaben)
    • Balance sheet, P&L, trial balance, balance list
    • Annual statement
13. Analytics
14. Duplicates & search
15. Calendar & reminders
16. Company profile
17. Account settings & locale
18. Billing & subscription
19. Tips & best practices
20. Getting help

# 1. What is Steuerbuch?

Steuerbuch helps freelancers and small businesses in Austria:

• Capture every incoming invoice (PDF, image, email) and extract the data with AI-powered OCR.
• Create your own outgoing invoices, delivery notes and collective invoices.
• Organise documents into folders, link them to clients, and search everything.
• Track stock, fixed assets and their depreciation.
• Report what you need for tax filings — UVA, E/A, P&L, balance sheet and an annual statement.

Steuerbuch is designed for authenticated account access and encrypted browser connections. You can export your records or request deletion when needed.

# 2. Getting started

# 2.1 Create an account

1. Go to the sign-up page and enter your email + password.
2. You'll receive a verification email — click the link to activate the account.
3. Log in with your credentials. If you forgot your password, use Forgot password on the login screen.

# 2.2 Pick your language

Steuerbuch ships in English and de-AT (Austrian German). Switch at any time from the language selector in the top bar. Your choice is saved to your user profile, so the next login respects it automatically.

# 2.3 First-run wizard

On the first login you'll be asked to fill in the Company profile (name, address, UID/VAT number, default tax rate) and your UVA filing period (monthly or quarterly). Both can be changed later under Account settings.

# 3. Dashboard tour

The Dashboard is your daily home screen. It shows:

• Headline KPIs — revenue, expenses, net profit and open VAT for the current period.
• Upcoming deadlines — the next UVA due date, recurring invoice reminders, etc.
• Recent activity — the last uploaded invoices, outgoing invoices and payments.
• Quick actions — upload invoice, create outgoing invoice, open UVA report.

Click any KPI to jump straight into the matching report.

# 4. Uploading & managing invoices

# 4.1 Upload

1. Click Upload in the sidebar (or drag files onto the Dashboard).
2. Drop one or more files — PDF, PNG, JPG and HEIC are supported. You can also forward emails to your Steuerbuch inbox address to upload automatically.
3. Each file is queued for OCR. You'll see a progress indicator next to it.

# 4.2 AI OCR review

Once OCR finishes, open the invoice to review what Steuerbuch extracted:

• Supplier, invoice number, invoice date, due date
• Line items (description, quantity, unit, net, VAT rate)
• Totals (net, VAT, gross)
• VAT treatment — standard, reverse charge, EU intra-community acquisition, or export

Edit any field in place and press Save. Fields that the AI wasn't confident about are highlighted in yellow so you know where to double-check.

# 4.3 Linking

From the invoice detail page you can:

• Attach the invoice to a client (so it shows up in that client's ledger).
• File it in a folder (e.g. 2025 / Q2 / Office supplies).
• Split a single PDF that contains multiple invoices into separate records.
• Cancel (Storno) an invoice — creates a reversing record.

# 4.4 Duplicates

Steuerbuch detects likely duplicate uploads by hash, supplier + amount + date, and OCR content similarity. See Duplicates & search.

# 5. Outgoing invoices

Create invoices you send to your own customers:

1. Go to Outgoing invoices → New invoice.
2. Pick a client (or create one inline).
3. Add line items — Steuerbuch auto-fills unit prices from previous invoices to the same client when possible.
4. Choose VAT treatment and payment terms.
5. Preview the PDF, then Finalise to lock the invoice number (sequential, gap-free).

After finalising you can:

• Download the PDF.
• Email it directly from Steuerbuch.
• Mark as paid (manually or via bank matching in Invoice tracking).
• Storno (cancel) with a reversing invoice. The original becomes read-only.

# 5.1 Invoice tracking

The Invoice tracking view shows all outgoing invoices with their payment status (open, partially paid, paid, overdue) and lets you record payments.

# 6. Collective invoices

A collective invoice (Sammelrechnung) aggregates many delivery notes or small outgoing invoices for one client into a single monthly invoice.

1. Open Collective invoices → New.
2. Pick the client and the period.
3. Steuerbuch lists all eligible documents — tick the ones to include.
4. Finalise. The originals are flagged as "invoiced via collective #…" and can no longer be billed again.

# 7. Delivery notes

Delivery notes (Lieferscheine) document goods handed over to a customer before you bill them. Create one from the Delivery notes view, or directly from an outgoing invoice. A delivery note can later be turned into a regular or collective invoice.

# 8. Clients

The Clients view is your address book:

• Contact details, VAT number, default VAT treatment.
• Per-client ledger: all incoming and outgoing invoices, delivery notes and balance.
• Default discount, payment terms and currency.

# 9. Folders

Folders are a hierarchical filing cabinet for documents — use them any way that suits your workflow (by year, project, client, expense category, …).

• Create, rename, move and nest folders via drag-and-drop in the sidebar.
• Attach any invoice, delivery note or collective invoice to one or more folders.
• See aggregated totals per folder (net, VAT, gross).

# 10. Stock & inventory

If you sell physical goods, the Stock module keeps track of items and movements.

# 10.1 Items

Create stock items with SKU, name, unit, default cost and sales price.

# 10.2 Transactions

Every inbound (purchase) and outbound (sale) movement is a transaction. Steuerbuch computes:

• Quantity on hand
• Weighted average cost
• Profit per sale

You can reverse a transaction to undo a mistake; the reversal preserves the original for audit purposes.

# 10.3 Recognition review

When you upload a supplier invoice that contains items Steuerbuch recognises (matching SKU or name), they appear in Stock → Recognition review. Confirm or edit the quantity and the stock is updated automatically.

# 10.4 Stock reports

• On-hand value
• Movement history per item
• Stock turnover

# 11. Depreciation & assets

The Assets module tracks fixed assets (laptops, vehicles, machinery) and their depreciation over time.

1. Add an asset: purchase date, cost, useful life, depreciation method (linear, degressive).
2. Steuerbuch generates the depreciation schedule and posts the annual amount to your E/A and balance sheet automatically.
3. Retire or sell an asset to stop depreciation and book any gain/loss.

# 12. Reports

All reports share the same pattern: pick a period, review on screen, export to XLSX or PDF.

# 12.1 UVA (VAT advance return)

Steuerbuch generates a complete Umsatzsteuervoranmeldung with the full Austrian U30 Kennzahlen catalogue, per-rate breakdown, reverse-charge block, comparison to the previous period, top-N invoices and consistency warnings.

→ Full reference: UVA_REPORT.md

# 12.2 E/A report (Einnahmen-Ausgaben)

The cash-basis income/expense report used by most Austrian small businesses. Grouped by category, with drill-down to individual invoices and XLSX/PDF export.

# 12.3 Balance sheet, P&L, trial balance, balance list

For users on accrual-basis accounting:

• Balance sheet — assets, liabilities, equity at a given date.
• Profit & loss — income and expenses over a period.
• Trial balance — debits and credits per account.
• Balance list — per-account opening/closing balances.

# 12.4 Annual statement

Year-end summary combining E/A (or P&L), VAT, asset depreciation and stock changes into a single exportable package — a good starting point for your accountant at year-end.

# 13. Analytics

The Analytics view offers interactive charts:

• Revenue and expenses over time
• Top clients / top suppliers
• Expense categories
• VAT collected vs. paid

# 14. Duplicates & search

# 14.1 Duplicates

Open Duplicates to review suspected duplicate invoices. Each group shows why Steuerbuch considers them duplicates — merge, keep both, or delete.

# 14.2 Search

The global Search supports:

• Full-text (invoice text, supplier, note)
• Filters by date, client, folder, VAT rate, amount range
• Saved searches — pin your frequent queries to the sidebar

# 15. Calendar & reminders

The Calendar surfaces:

• UVA filing due dates (based on your filing period)
• Outgoing invoice due dates and payment reminders
• Recurring tasks you define yourself

# 16. Company profile

Under Settings → Company profile you maintain the data that appears on your outgoing invoices: legal name, address, UID/VAT number, bank details, logo and default footer text.

# 17. Account settings & locale

Under Settings → Account:

• Change your email or password
• Switch Language (EN / de-AT) — syncs UI strings and PrimeVue component labels
• Change your UVA filing period (monthly / quarterly)
• Enable two-factor authentication (if available on your plan)
• Download a full data export (ZIP)
• Permanently delete your account

# 18. Billing & subscription

Steuerbuch uses Stripe Checkout for payments.

# 18.1 Choose a plan

Go to Pricing to compare plans. Click Subscribe — you'll be redirected to Stripe Checkout, pay, and land back on Steuerbuch.

# 18.2 Manage

Settings → Billing lets you:

• See your current plan, renewal date and invoice history
• Download Stripe receipts
• Upgrade / downgrade (proration is automatic)
• Update your payment method
• Cancel — access continues until the end of the paid period

# 18.3 Cancelled plan

If your subscription lapses, Steuerbuch remains readable for 30 days so you can export your data. Write access to most modules is disabled until you re-subscribe.

# 19. Tips & best practices

• Upload as you go. Forward supplier emails straight to Steuerbuch so nothing slips.
• Use folders to mirror how you think about your business — Steuerbuch's reports don't depend on folder structure, so feel free to reorganise at any time.
• Review the UVA early each month. Consistency warnings often catch a wrong VAT rate or a missing invoice before the filing deadline.
• Name your stock items consistently with your suppliers' wording so the AI can auto-recognise them on future invoices.
• Export regularly. You own your data — a monthly XLSX export is a cheap insurance policy.

# 20. Getting help

• Check the FAQ.
• Accountants, tax advisors and bookkeepers: see the Professional Guide for an in-depth reference (chart of accounts, UVA Kennzahlen, journal model, export schemas).
• The in-app help bubble (bottom right) links to context-specific articles.
• Contact support via the email address on your Billing page.

Happy filing! 🇦🇹