User Guide
All BauFin!app modules in one place
For sole proprietors (Einzelunternehmer) and partnerships (GbR) in construction and services — tilers, masons, painters, roofers, electricians and all other craftsmen. BauFin!app uses EÜR (simplified accounting) used by most craft businesses.
Dashboard
The Dashboard is your cockpit — the first thing you see after logging in. On a single screen you get a picture of your whole business for the current working year: how much you earned (income from orders), how much you spent (materials, subcontractors, vehicles), what you have left after everything (profit) and how much you owe the tax office in VAT. The monthly chart and trend show which months were strong and which were weak. The order map shows where you worked this year. The Dashboard highlights overdue invoices by itself (who owes and how much) as well as upcoming deadlines. You don't have to calculate anything — the data loads on its own, and you switch the year with a single click.
Clients
A database of all your clients in one place — both companies and private individuals. Here you keep addresses, phone numbers, emails, tax numbers and USt-ID. The most important field is the §13b marker — you check it when the client is a construction contractor. Why does it matter? Because you issue invoices to such clients without VAT (Reverse Charge), and if you get it wrong, the tax office may take issue. From the client card you can immediately issue a quote or an invoice — the data fills in by itself, you don't retype anything twice.
Suppliers
The wholesalers and firms you buy material from — together with the terms you negotiated there. The line that matters most is the discount: many tradesmen get 15, 20 or 30 per cent at the builders' merchant, but a different rate for each product group. That is exactly what discount groups are for. Enter what you really get and the programme calculates with your price at goods receipt, not the list price. Then the payment terms: early-payment discount and days to pay. Two per cent for paying within ten days adds up to more over a year than most people expect — the system reminds you while the deadline is still running.
Services catalogue (VOB)
Your price list for labour, arranged according to VOB/C — the order that architects and public clients know. Instead of typing „lay tiles" afresh into every quotation, you pick the item from the catalogue: code, description, unit and your price are settled. The catalogue carries a guide price for every item, but the column that counts is „my price" — yours, not the one from the book. Keep it tidy once and you will write quotations in minutes and never again charge two different prices for the same work.
Quotes
A quote (Angebot) is your cost estimate for the client — in writing you show what you will do and for how much. You enter each item with a purchase price and a sale price, so you immediately see the margin and don't take on work below the line. For construction firms the system prepares the VAT Reverse Charge (§13b). In the PDF you can show a split into materials and labour — this matters for a private client, because they can deduct labour from their tax (§35a EStG). You send the quote by email as a PDF, and the system tracks whether the client opened it. When the client wants changes, you clone the quote as a new version (v2, v3...) with a link to the original — you don't lose the negotiation history. An accepted quote is turned into an order with a single click. You can set a percentage down payment and copy the quote for another client.
Contracts
Create legally binding contracts — all the ones a construction company needs, not just those with clients. Contracts for work (as a subcontractor for the general contractor under VOB/B, as the main contractor for a business client, or a renovation for a private client under BGB), a contract with your subcontractor, plus HR contracts: employment (including Minijob), apprenticeship, internship and freelancer, and on top of that a company-car handover, a termination agreement, a rental and a maintenance contract. The system fills in the data automatically from the client, employee, subcontractor or vehicle profile and keeps an eye on the legal requirements (VAT Reverse Charge §13b, §48b exemption certificate, minimum wage). The contract is first signed by your company, then by the other party — the client in the client portal.
Projects
A project is a folder that binds several related orders into one bigger job — a large job whose execution requires many stages (e.g. building a house: foundation, walls, finishing — each a separate order). A project doesn't replace an order, it sits on top of them. On a single dashboard you see the totalled hours, income, costs and margin from all stages at once, and separately the progress (plan versus actual) and the project cashflow, i.e. cash movements. You assign a client and a construction site address to the project, you add and detach orders at any time, and every change goes into the log.
Orders
An order (Auftrag) is the basic unit of your work — one job at one client and the foundation of every invoice. It can come from an accepted quote or you create it manually. An order goes through stages: New → In progress → Completed → Invoiced. You settle it by the hour (an hourly rate) or as a lump sum, and for larger jobs you invoice with a down payment (Abschlag) and a final invoice. To an order you add the crew's working hours, material costs, photos from the site, documents, notes (you can dictate them by voice) and trips from GPS. When you take on a similar job, you clone the order with a single click — a new one is created with the same data (the system won't let you clone the same order twice on the same day). You can also create a follow-up order, and the chain of links (what came from what — a clone, a follow-up, a storno) is always at hand. Every change lands in the log, which matters in case an audit comes.
Planning
Planning is your work schedule in three views, so that nothing clashes in time or slips through the cracks. The board (Kanban) shows orders as cards in columns by status — you drag them from "To do" to "In progress" and "Done". The timeline (Gantt) shows orders as bars in a calendar, so you can see at once whether two jobs overlap on the same days. The resource schedule lets you assign employees to orders so you don't send the same crew to two places at once. You filter everything by year, client, project and status.
Time Tracking
Recording your crew's working time — separately for each employee and each order. You enter the clock-in time, clock-out time and the break, and the system calculates the hours worked and the day's pay according to the rate. You can attach photos from the site to an entry. The calendar view shows the whole month — days with work highlighted in green. This data flows directly into the settlement of hourly orders, into hour reports for the client (Stundennachweis) and into the records required for a customs inspection (MiLoG) and by the construction holiday fund (SOKA-BAU). The system warns you when the hours break working-time rules.
Catalog
Your own price list of building materials — plasterboard, cement, tiles, cables and whatever else you install. Instead of typing everything from scratch in every quote, you add a material once with a purchase price and a sale price, and then you just pick it from the list — the description, unit and price fill in by themselves, and the margin is visible right away. The system assigns the article number by itself and creates a German name for quotes and invoices. You load the whole price list from a wholesaler from a DATANORM file, and price updates alone from a DATPREIS file — with a preview of what is new and where the price has changed, before you confirm.
Vehicles
Managing the whole company fleet in one place — every car, van or trailer. The system watches all the deadlines for you: the inspection (HU/AU, i.e. TÜV/DEKRA), liability and comprehensive insurance, the vehicle tax and the leasing contract. A few weeks before an expiry you get a warning, so that no deadline catches you off guard. Here you collect invoices from the workshop and repairs, receipts for fuel, keep a mileage log (Fahrtenbuch), and the system calculates the total cost of ownership of the vehicle (TCO) and the depreciation. You mark each vehicle as business or private — this decides how much of the costs you deduct from tax.
Scanner / Receipts
No more retyping receipts. You take a photo of a receipt or invoice (for materials, tools, fuel), and the assistant reads out the amount, date, seller and category by itself. You just check whether it read correctly and confirm — the system immediately creates a business expense from it, ready to be booked. Separately it recognises fuel receipts and links them to a vehicle. If the reading is uncertain or the photo doesn't look like a document, you get a warning. You can also preview the raw text the system saw in the photo and track statistics of the scanned documents.
Maintenance visits
An overview of everything your maintenance contracts bring up next — and at whose place. You create nothing here by hand: as soon as a contract with a maintenance interval exists, the dates appear on their own. That is the difference between a maintenance contract that earns money and one forgotten in a folder. Overdue visits stand at the top and say how many days they have been hanging. Every row shows the amount per visit, so you see at a glance how much predictable turnover lies in the coming months.
Invoices
Issuing and keeping track of invoices for construction work. Items in various units (hours, m², pieces, lump sum), and for construction firms the VAT Reverse Charge (§13b). For large jobs you invoice in stages: a down payment invoice (Abschlag), a partial acceptance (Teilschluss) and a final invoice (Schluss) with a settlement of the down payments paid — all in line with §14 UStG. You send the invoice by email as a PDF, also as a ZUGFeRD e-invoice (which companies and authorities increasingly require). When you make a mistake you don't delete the invoice — you do a storno, which creates a correction invoice with a mandatory reason (a stornoed invoice can no longer be reactivated, the law requires this). A similar invoice you clone as a new one. After confirmation the invoice gets a number and an edit lock; when the client doesn't pay, the system suggests a dunning notice.
Other income
Not every income of the business is an invoice for work. Here you enter all the other money that comes into the business: a SOKA-BAU contribution refund, subsidies, insurance compensation, interest from the account or income from renting out equipment. This matters, because these amounts are also business income and must go into the annual accounts (the income statement), otherwise the books don't add up. You enter the amount, date, category and a short description, and the system adds it to the income alongside the invoices. The system knows by itself which of these are subject to VAT and which are not — a SOKA-BAU refund, a subsidy, compensation and interest are not, so it won't put them into the VAT return. With equipment rental we ask, because there it depends on the contract.
Business Expenses
All the money you spend on the business — materials, fuel, tools, insurance, phone. You assign each expense to a category and mark it as a business one so it lowers the tax. The system separates net and VAT — this VAT (Vorsteuer) you recover from the tax office, provided you have a proper document. You enter an expense manually, load it with a photo of the receipt (OCR) or import it as an e-invoice (XRechnung/ZUGFeRD) — then the data fills in by itself, without retyping. You can also plan larger purchases in advance and mark them as bought or cancel the plan.
Cash Book
The Cash Book (Kassenbuch) is the record of the business's cash — every euro that comes into the cash box or leaves it. If you take or pay in cash, you have to record it here. This is not an ordinary notebook — the German tax office (§146 AO) requires the entry on the same day, and the cash box cannot go below zero. At the end of the day you do a daily close (Tagesabschluss) — after it the day's entries can no longer be changed. When you make a mistake in an entry, you don't delete it — you do a storno, which creates a counter-entry with a mandatory reason. If you don't handle cash, the module stays empty.
Bank Statements
Import of statements from your business account — instead of manually retyping every transaction, you upload a CSV file from the bank (Revolut, Commerzbank, Sparkasse, Deutsche Bank, N26, Wise, ING, Postbank, Volksbank/Raiffeisen — and if your bank is not on the list, the program reads a plain CSV file), and the assistant suggests a category for each item by itself and matches payments to your invoices and expenses. This hugely speeds up bookkeeping. Certain transactions you confirm in bulk, and uncertain ones you check manually. The system makes sure that a repeated import doesn't duplicate the same transactions, and private transfers you can ignore.
Dunning Notices
When a client doesn't pay on time, the system catches it by itself and helps you recover the money. It detects overdue invoices and shows how many days the client is late. The dunning notices go in order in four escalation levels: a gentle reminder, a first notice, a second notice and a final one — at each you can add default interest (calculated from the Bundesbank's current base rate) and a dunning fee. Each notice is a PDF that you send by email, post or both at once; you can also set the system to send them automatically after a set number of days from the deadline. When the client pays, you mark the invoice as paid and the notice closes by itself.
Warranty retention
For large jobs for companies (B2B) the client often retains part of your payment as a warranty retention (Sicherheitseinbehalt §17 VOB/B) — security in case of defects, usually for the warranty period, even up to 5 years. It's easy to forget about such a retention and lose money. This module watches them for you: the retention is created automatically after a B2B invoice with an active clause is paid, and the system reminds you when the client should return it to you. The client can also propose through the portal exchanging the retention for a bank guarantee — you accept or reject it with a single click. When you recover the money, you record the return.
Tax Management
The central place for all the tax matters of a construction firm. Here you keep certificates of exemption from the construction tax (Freistellung §48b — thanks to it the client pays you the full amount, without withholding 15%), vehicles with depreciation (AfA), loans with repayment plans and interest, income and church tax prepayments, and VAT returns. You submit monthly or quarterly VAT returns (Voranmeldung), and once a year you generate an annual VAT return — the system calculates it, and you download the ready XML file to send to elster.de and a PDF for the archive. It takes into account the special advance payment (1/11, when the deadline is extended) and export outside the EU. The system watches the validity dates of the certificates and the prepayment deadlines, so that nothing slips away.
Income Statement
The EÜR (Einnahmenüberschussrechnung) is a simplified profit and loss statement, the way most sole-trader construction firms in Germany settle their accounts. In plain terms: income minus costs gives the result on which the tax is calculated. The system assembles it automatically from your invoices (income) and expenses (costs) — you don't have to total anything up manually. What counts is the day the money came in — not the day the invoice was issued. A December invoice paid in January goes into the new year's result (cash basis, §11 EStG). It splits income by VAT rate (19%, 7%, 0% for the Reverse Charge), and costs by category. You can export the ready statement in DATEV format and hand it to your accountant.
Cash Flow
Cash Flow shows what actually came into the business and what went out — not from issued invoices, but from the bank account and the cash box. You pick a year and see month by month: what came in, what went out, what balance was left and how it added up. Click a month and the list of individual inflows and outflows opens up — including transfers between accounts, private deposits and refunds. It's a snapshot of the real money position, not an accounting approximation. If you want to see what is still to come, look into the Forecast.
Controlling
Controlling is the analysis of what you really earn on and what you lose on. Three things in one place: the development of the business month by month (income and costs), client profitability (which client brings profit and which just brings work) and a comparison of orders plan versus reality (how many hours and costs you assumed, and how many it actually came to). Thanks to this you know which clients to raise prices for and where you miscalculate in your quotes.
Forecast
The Forecast looks into the future for 3 to 12 months and warns you about liquidity troubles before they appear. It's a cash flow simulation: the system calculates the expected inflows from open invoices, upcoming tax prepayments and loan instalments, and when it turns out that the balance may fall below zero — it raises the alarm by itself. Separately you plan the annual profit: you set a target and see whether the business is heading in the right direction. This gives you time to react before the money runs out.
Tax Audit
When the tax office announces an audit (Betriebsprüfung), this module saves your skin — in one place you have all the documents and exports the Betriebsprüfer will demand. Instead of frantically searching for papers, you download the ready files: the GDPdU export (data for the auditor's IDEA program), the DATEV export for the accountant, a description of the accounting processes (Verfahrensdokumentation) in German and in your own words, a log of all the changes in the system, and a summary of working hours (MiLoG) for the customs inspection. On top of that, a checklist of what to prepare, and a separate access for the auditor. All in line with the requirement of electronic archiving (GoBD §147 AO).
Tax Watchdog
The Tax Watchdog is your automatic risk sensor. Once a week it reviews your invoices and data and checks 5 typical tax risks that can end in a penalty from the tax office — for example errors in the VAT Reverse Charge or exceeding limits. If something starts to look dangerous, you get an early warning before the tax office notices. This is not the same as the Savings Check (that one looks for savings) — the Watchdog makes sure you don't get into trouble.
Accountant Portal
A portal for your accounting office or tax advisor (Steuerberater). Instead of sending the accountant files by email, you give them secure access — they see invoices, expenses, the income statement, the archive and vehicles. View-only by default, but if you want, you can separately allow them to add expenses or correct invoices. They log in with their own email and a password you set for them, and you decide from which year the data is visible to them. Everything the accountant reviews is saved in the audit log, so you have full control.
Private deposits and withdrawals
What you took out of the firm for yourself during the year and what you put in from your own pocket. It sounds like bookkeeper's business, but it is the point where the tax office looks especially closely at sole traders: deposits and withdrawals decide whether the interest on your business loan is fully deductible (§ 4 Abs. 4a EStG). Whoever takes out a lot and puts in little loses part of the interest deduction — not out of spite, but because the law says so. The same record also sits at the bottom of the annual statement; this screen is the short cut to it, under the name the tax office uses when it asks.
Archive
A digital archive of all the company's documents, in line with the German retention rules (GoBD) — you keep documents for as long as the law requires. Invoices, contracts, tax decisions, receipts, certificates and correspondence you arrange by quarter (Q1–Q4) so it's easy to find your way around. A document once archived can no longer be changed (a GoBD lock) — that's your protection during an audit. The search searches everything, including the text read from scans (OCR), so you'll find any paper in a few seconds.
Company Configuration
All your company's data and documents in one place — this is the foundation the whole system draws on. You enter the address, tax numbers, the §48b exemption and the bank account, and this data automatically goes onto invoices, quotes and dunning notices. Here you also keep the company's official documents: the business registration (Gewerbeanmeldung), your own tax exemption certificate and others — the system watches their validity. A separate tab is the company history, i.e. a chronology of the most important changes.
Terms & Conditions (AGB)
The Terms & Conditions (AGB) are your conditions for providing services — the rules on which you work with clients. The system keeps them in versions: the active version automatically goes into every contract and into the client portal, and the client accepts it at registration (the law requires this, §305 BGB). When you change the terms, a new version is created, and the old ones remain in the history — it's always known which version a given client accepted. You don't have to send anything manually or keep track of who signed what.
Settings
Settings is the place where you tune the system to yourself and your company. You configure the user profile and password, two-factor authentication (2FA) for security, the interface language, rates, invoice numbering, the footer and logo on documents, bank accounts for importing statements, the time and type of notifications, and integrations. You also have an activity log (who did what and when) and an invoice preview. From here you turn on the automatic daily export of all data (Export Pro) — once a day the system packs the database and documents into a ZIP and sends a link by email, so you always have a backup copy stored in the EU.
Readiness check
The list of what has to be set up before you work with the programme in earnest — with a percentage of how far along you are. The check distinguishes three levels: blocking, open and optional. Blocking means something is missing without which an invoice would not be legally sound — a tax number, say, or the invoice numbering range. Open items are things you will need soon but that do not stop you today. The point is this: you should not write your first invoice with a half-configured firm and find out only when the customer sends it back.
Data export
Every night a complete copy of your company data is created automatically, ready for you to download. Why this matters: the data is yours, and nobody should be able to cut you off from it — us included. The archive contains the receipts and documents too, not just the tables. When your tax adviser needs something, when you want to switch programmes, or when the tax office announces an audit, you have everything to hand. The screen also shows whether the last automatic backup went through — if it did not, you are warned and do not have to trust that it will somehow be fine.
Users module
Everyone works with their own account and only reaches what they need for their job. As long as you work alone, one account is enough. Once you have an office assistant, an accountant and three people on site, the question comes up: who should see turnover and wages, and for whom is it enough to enter hours and upload a receipt. You create an account for each person and pick from a list who they are in the company. The program sets up the rest — you do not go through settings point by point. With every choice you immediately see what that person will see and what they will not. You create as many accounts as you need. The price does not change.
Warehouse
Warehouse management based on your material Catalog. You book incoming stock (what came from the wholesaler) and outgoing stock (what went to the site), and the system shows the levels on an ongoing basis and alerts you when a material is running low. When you issue a material for a specific order, its value goes as a real cost into the profitability of that order (Controlling) — without double counting in taxes. At the end of the year you do a stocktake (physical inventory). This is an additional module — you turn it on if you want to keep control of the material in stock.
Employees
Managing the employees of a construction firm — personal data, employment conditions, working time and wage settlements. The most important thing is the Sofortmeldung — the immediate registration of an employee with social insurance (§28a SGB IV), which in construction must be filed BEFORE the first day of work. If you don't do it on time, high penalties loom. The system reminds you of this obligation, watches the minimum wage for construction (Mindestlohn Bau) and calculates wages (gross, net, insurance, tax).
Subcontractors
A database of your subcontractors together with documents, certificates and tax control points. The most important thing: the system watches the validity of the certificate of exemption from the construction tax (§48b). Why does it matter? Because if a subcontractor doesn't have a valid exemption, the law requires you to withhold 15% of their invoice and remit it to the tax office (Bauabzugsteuer) — the system prepares such a calculation. On top of that, ratings and a history of cooperation help you choose trusted people, and alerts remind you of expiring documents.
Client Portal
The Client Portal is a page your client logs into and sees on an ongoing basis what's happening with their order — without phone calls and emails asking "so how's it going?". In the portal the client signs off working hours (confirms that the crew was there), reviews photos from the site, the construction log, settlements, quotes and contracts, accepts the terms, reports defects, writes messages and arranges appointments. At the end of the job they confirm the acceptance protocol of the works (Abnahme) — from that moment the warranty period runs. They also see their warranty retentions. You have peace of mind, and the client a sense of control and professional service.
Savings Check
Savings Check — reviews your business against 21 rules tailored to the construction trade in Germany. You fill in your profile once (marital status, legal form, trade, family, employees, tax data), and the system asks questions only about the rules that may apply to you. Before you pay for anything, you see a summary: how many rules fit, what the savings potential is and how much a full report costs (15 € for each active rule). The report describes everything in plain terms, with the legal basis and questions for the accountant — you take it to the Steuerberater as a ready list.
GPS Tracker
The GPS Tracker is a Premium module that keeps your mileage log for you. You plug a small device into the car (plug-and-play), and it shows the vehicle's location live and automatically records every trip — it takes the kilometres straight from the car's odometer, so they're accurate to the kilometre. The assistant recognises by itself whether a trip was business or private (from client addresses and times), and you can manually reclassify any trip or correct the address. It also recognises work stops (breaks on the site). Everything is protected against manipulation and has a full audit trail for the tax office (§146 AO). In the cockpit you see the mileage, fault codes (DTC) and vehicle events. No more manually entering routes.
Notifications via ntfy
BauFin!app uses ntfy — an open notification system without a phone number and without a Meta account. Instead of WhatsApp groups you get a separate channel of alerts about invoices, payments and deadlines. You install the ntfy app, scan a QR code and choose which notifications you want to receive.
Why not WhatsApp? Learn more →OWL — someone has to watch your payment deadlines!
OWL — someone has to watch your payment deadlines!
OWL is a bonus module for managing fixed monthly costs — rent, leasing, insurance, phone, internet, etc. A calendar sheet with 31 days shows at a glance when which payment is due. Automatic ntfy reminders help you keep track of the deadlines. Why OWL? …because a late instalment hurts more than an alarm clock.
