Errors in the ZUGFeRD Specification Part 2

24 Juli 2014

Last week I posted about Errors in the ZUGFeRD Specification. A reply to my questions came very quickly from FeRD(Forum elektronische Rechnung Deutschland) stating that the documentation and the resulting XSD Schema are correct.

The explanation for the differences is based on the fact the ZUGFeRD XSD schema is designed following the Venetian blind XML Schema design pattern.

Die CCL ist nach dem Desingprinzip Venetian Blind aufgebaut (Kapitel 6.1, sowie technische Dokumentation Kapitel 4.3), wodurch sich XSD und Spezifikation formal unterscheiden. Die Lösung dafür bietet die ebenfalls veröffentlichte Schematron-Datei (Kapitel 10.6), die genau diese Designlücke schließt. Eine Validierung erfolgt bei ZUGFeRD also immer in der Kombination aus XSD-Validierung und Schematron-Validierung. Die in der gedruckten Spezifikation enthaltenen Informationen haben somit also volle Richtigkeit.

After reading about the XML Schema design and the ZUGFeRD specification and the XSD file I came to the conclusion that:

Finally we have to take into account the four different documents provided.

  • ZUGFeRD Model (Chapter "3 Das semantische ZUGFeRD-Datenmodell" in "Das ZUGFeRD-Format_1p0_technische_Dokumentation.pdf")

  • ZUGFeRD Schema (Chapter "4 Das ZUGFeRD-Schema" in "Das ZUGFeRD-Format_1p0_technische_Dokumentation.pdf")

  • ZUGFeRD XSD File (ZUGFeRD_1p0.xsd)

  • ZUGFeRD Schematron (ZUGFeRD_1p0.scmt)

Only all four together provide us with a valid ZUGFeRD compliant invoice. Validating your XML Invoice file against the XSD Schema does not guarantee a ZUGFeRD compliant Invoice. Also a successful validation of an XML file against Schematron is not a guarantee.

CEFEG shutdown their validation service, because it is based on XSD Schema validation and Schematron which cannot guarantee a correct invoice at the current state of development.

Error Message on din-zugferd-validation.org telling that they can’t validate correctly ZUGFeRD Invoices
Figure 1. Error Message on the eInvoice Validation Portal din-zugferd-validation.org.

Incorrect XML Examples

This week I am going to publish corrected XML Invoice Example File. While working on the next release of the Konik library and adding validation features to the library, it was noticed that some of the existent ZUGFeRD examples were marked as incorrect.

Let’s take a look at file Beispielrechnung_1p0_COMFORT.xml which is part of the ZUGFeRD specification package as an example to explain what is incorrect regarding the ZUGFeRD model.

<ram:SpecifiedTradeAllowanceCharge>
   <ram:ChargeIndicator>
      <udt:Indicator>false</udt:Indicator>
   </ram:ChargeIndicator>
   <ram:BasisAmount currencyID="EUR">10.00</ram:BasisAmount>
   <ram:ActualAmount>1.00</ram:ActualAmount> (1)
<!-- ... -->
</ram:SpecifiedTradeAllowanceCharge>
<!-- ... -->
<ram:SpecifiedLogisticsServiceCharge>
   <ram:Description>Versandkosten</ram:Description>
   <ram:AppliedAmount>5.80</ram:AppliedAmount> (2)
    <!-- ... -->
</ram:SpecifiedLogisticsServiceCharge>
1 The ActualAmount contains only the value and no attribute with the currency like in BasisAmount one line above.
2 AppliedAmount is also defined as udt:AmountType and hence should also contain a currency attribute.

The ZUGFeRD model stated that all udt:AmountType require an Currency Code. .udt:AmountType requiring a currency code in ApplicableTradeTax image::img/blog/july/AmountType_Example.png["udt:AmountType requiring a currency code"]

The Model and the Schema declare udt:AmountType as required but not the XSD File.

Solution

The first and probably best solution is to use a library such as Konik which will assist you in creating a valid and ZUGFeRD compliant invoice. Konik will also make the XSD Schema Validation and Schematron optional. The second solution would be to modify the XSD Schema file according to the model and ZUGFeRD schema definition to get at least an error when validating the xml against the XSD Schema.

<xs:schema xmlns:udt="urn:un:unece:uncefact:data:standard:UnqualifiedDataType:15" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" targetNamespace="urn:un:unece:uncefact:data:standard:UnqualifiedDataType:15" elementFormDefault="qualified" version="15.0">
	<xs:complexType name="AmountType">
		<xs:simpleContent>
			<xs:extension base="xs:decimal">
				<xs:attribute name="currencyID" type="udt:AmountTypeCurrencyIDContentType" use="required"/> (1)
			</xs:extension>
		</xs:simpleContent>
	</xs:complexType>
1 Add use="required" to mark the attribute as required so the validation of the XML Files against the XSD Schema will fail.

Maybe because of the Venetian blind schema design requirements or the automatic generation of the XSD Schema File from the ZUGFeRD Schema definition, this was not done.

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Errors in the ZUGFeRD Specification Part 1