EU member states already require e-invoicing for public procurement (B2G). Many national administrations are now enforcing these rules for business-to-business (B2B) transactions as well — including non-profit organizations that operate commercially. At SYSTOPIA, we've taken up the challenge and are developing CiviInvoice: a CiviCRM extension for compliant e-invoices — and, beyond that, a genuinely solid invoicing solution for CiviCRM that the ecosystem has long been missing.
The Regulatory Backdrop
Germany has been rolling out mandatory e-invoicing requirements since 2025, with all organizations required to comply fully by January 1, 2028. Through the end of 2027, this applies only to organizations with prior-year revenue of at least 800,000 EUR. Starting January 1, 2028, without exception, all businesses will be required to send e-invoices for domestic B2B transactions — including associations, foundations, and non-profit limited liability companies (gGmbHs), to the extent they operate commercially.
Other countries have their own timelines and thresholds under equivalent national legislation, but the requirement is set to become universally mandatory within the next few years.
That means: anyone creating invoices in CiviCRM who doesn't yet have a compliant solution should act now.
Challenge Accepted
At SYSTOPIA, we've taken up this challenge and begun the development of CiviInvoice, a CiviCRM extension for compliant e-invoices.
The extension will support invoices in the ZUGFeRD format, based on the European Standard EN 16931. ZUGFeRD is a hybrid format: a PDF invoice with embedded machine-readable XML. It meets the requirements of the mandatory e-invoicing obligation while remaining human-readable — ideal for organizations that need to support both automated processing and traditional invoice delivery. The output format is ultimately a detail, though; other standards-compliant formats can be implemented as well.
But CiviInvoice is about more than regulatory compliance. CiviCRM's existing invoicing functions have never been a reliable technical foundation — they are limited in scope and difficult to build upon. CiviInvoice is designed from the ground up as a modern, fully entity-based invoicing solution: modular, generically conceived, and aligned with current CiviCRM development standards. It is built to cover the complete invoice lifecycle — from defining different invoicing models, through standards-compliant invoice generation, all the way to payment reminders and accounting exports. The goal is a future-proof billing system that can serve the full range of invoicing scenarios in CiviCRM, not just the simple ones.
To get there, we are taking an iterative approach: the use cases of our pilot users will be implemented first. The long-term goal is a broadly usable free software tool that can cover many different invoicing scenarios across the CiviCRM community.
When it comes to software development, our motto is: if we do it, we do it properly. Over the past 15 years, we've demonstrated that we can build complex CiviCRM solutions with the necessary care, expertise, and long-term perspective. Extensions such as CiviSEPA, CiviBanking, CiviOffice, the Entity Construction Kit, Donation Receipts, and many other projects have become indispensable to the CiviCRM community. We want to do the same here — and we're counting on community contributions to make it happen.
Support the Development
Anyone creating invoices in CiviCRM who doesn't yet have a solution for e-invoicing compliance should reach out. We're looking for organizations that:
- can make a financial contribution toward development costs according to their means,
- will benefit early from a professional solution in return,
- and bring their own requirements into the development process as pilot users.
Organizations that prefer to wait until the extension is finished and freely available not only risk going longer without a compliant solution — they also forgo the opportunity to shape it according to their own needs. Every contribution toward the development is, above all, an investment in the sustainability of the CiviCRM ecosystem.
Interested?
Feel free to reach out to Martin Peth at peth@systopia.de — we'll be happy to discuss your requirements and the potential for collaboration.
