> Definitely, Germany strongly believes that a document that hasn't been a physical piece of paper at least once can't be real.
I'm sorry to tell you that is a an oversimplification and especially for documenting expenses as a company/freelancer it's kind of worse.
Last time I checked if you want to follow the tax law to the word you're not allowed to change the medium:
If an invoice came as a paper copy (e.g. by snail mail), this paper copy is the original. If you scan it the digital version isn't.
If an invoice came as a digital document (e.g. a PDF by email), this digital document is the original - a printed version of that digital document isn't.
So if a tax inspector asks for "originals" it's technically almost impossible to provide them in the sense of the law. If even a tax inspector would care is another question.
It's perfectly legal (and common) for a decade now to scan documents and destroy the paper original as long as you follow some guidelines. Keyword is "ersetzendes Scannen".
And yes, they care about those rules and that you provide "originals" according to that definition - in particular that you didn't modify digital documents in any way. You can (and should) comply with that and there are service providers to help if you are to small to set that up yourself.
Thanks, today I learned about "ersetzendes Scannen". I just checked and it's exactly a decade (2013) since it's allowed which coincidetally is the year when I started working as a freelancer (and I have to care about such rules).
I admit that my last paragraph was kind of hyperbole, but I never heard (at least from other freelancers) of a tax inspector which wasn't happy with either everything printed or everything digital. I guess they really start to care if they suspect something fishy.
Just a side note to this and the other replies: You can also keep the original documents and add scans to paperless for indexing, etc. Since I switched to paperless I keep my originals in binders just ordered by the paperless id, so I can retrieve the original when required.
I'm sorry to tell you that is a an oversimplification and especially for documenting expenses as a company/freelancer it's kind of worse.
Last time I checked if you want to follow the tax law to the word you're not allowed to change the medium:
If an invoice came as a paper copy (e.g. by snail mail), this paper copy is the original. If you scan it the digital version isn't.
If an invoice came as a digital document (e.g. a PDF by email), this digital document is the original - a printed version of that digital document isn't.
So if a tax inspector asks for "originals" it's technically almost impossible to provide them in the sense of the law. If even a tax inspector would care is another question.