WBS product · For Dynamics 365 Sales and Project Operations

WBS Invoice Accelerator for Dynamics 365

The WBS Invoice Accelerator extends Dynamics 365 invoicing in Sales and Project Operations. It turns the standard invoice into a document your team edits in place, laid out the way your customer will receive it. You get brand profiles for each brand you bill under, invoice types from down payment to final invoice, VAT per line, foreign-currency invoices and a sequential number that’s assigned when you finalise. For invoicing in Germany, ZUGFeRD or XRechnung comes straight from the invoice. It’s a managed solution in your own Dataverse environment and works on Microsoft’s invoice record, so there’s no second system and nothing to sync. You keep getting Microsoft’s updates. We implement it with your finance team.

The gap

Invoicing in Dynamics 365 Sales and Project Operations often ends in Word and Excel

Sales and Project Operations keep every invoice on one standard table in Dataverse. The document and the rules for advances often sit outside it, in Word templates and spreadsheets. The WBS Invoice Accelerator is built for invoices on that standard table, whether they are created from a sales order, by Project Operations or by hand. Finance & Operations and Business Central have their own invoicing and e-invoicing, and many specialised vendors serve them.

01

The document comes from a Word template or a report

In Sales and Project Operations, the invoice is a form with fields. The document your customer receives usually comes from a Word template or a report, so your team edits in one place, checks the result in another and often makes the last changes by hand.

02

The standard invoice has no down payment, progress or final invoice

The standard invoice is active, paid or cancelled. There is no down payment, progress or final invoice, and in Dynamics 365 Sales cancelling an invoice only changes its status. Running balances for progress billing often end up in Excel.

03

The number comes too early

Dynamics 365 numbers an invoice as soon as the record is created. Drafts use up numbers, so the sequence no longer shows which invoices were issued.

Visual editor

A visual invoice editor with brand profiles, inside Dynamics 365

With the full accelerator, the invoice form shows the finished document. Click the part you want to change and edit it in place. Products, prices and customers come from Dynamics 365, VAT rates from your tax rate table, and every save goes back to the standard invoice and its lines.

Editor

Edit on the invoice itself

Hover over the letterhead, the customer address, a line, the totals or the footer text, and a pencil appears. Click it and that part opens for editing where it sits, with the layout unchanged. Subtotal, discount, tax rows and total update as you type.

Lines

Products and prices from your catalogue

Start typing and pick an active product from Dynamics 365; the price comes from the invoice’s price list, and products with several units let you choose one. Any text can become a write-in line. Drag lines to reorder them, and edit rate, quantity or total: type a total and the rate is worked out.

Brands

Several brand identities in one environment

Each brand profile holds its own legal name, logo, colours, address, tax IDs, bank details, default VAT rate and price list, plus paper size (A4 or US Letter) and locale. Pick the profile per invoice. Logo, colours and business details can be changed in the editor and apply to every invoice of that brand.

Overview

An invoice overview with due dates and status

The invoice list shows customer, number, a due label such as “Due in 4 days”, the amount in each invoice’s currency, a type badge and a status. Three tiles show what’s overdue, open and in draft. Filter by invoice type, search, and open an invoice with a click.

Also in the editor

One layout for screen, print and PDF
The editor, the print view and the PDF inside the ZUGFeRD file come from the same document component, so your customer receives the invoice you checked on screen. On long invoices, the table header repeats on every page, and rows, totals and footer are not split across pages.

How it works

From draft to issued invoice in Dynamics 365 Sales and Project Operations

Your team keeps working on the standard Dynamics 365 invoice. With the full accelerator, an invoice goes through these four steps in the WBS Invoice Accelerator app. The e-invoice add-on brings only the e-invoice part of the last step to your existing invoice form.

01

Create the invoice

From a sales order in Dynamics 365 Sales, from the invoice run or the “Create invoice” action on a project contract in Project Operations, or by hand, starting from a blank document with your default brand profile. “Duplicate Invoice” copies an existing invoice and its lines into a new draft. Until it is finalised, the invoice carries only the draft ID that Dynamics 365 assigns, such as ENTWURF-01053, and can still be deleted.

02

Set type, brand and VAT

Choose the invoice type and the brand profile, which supplies seller data, logo, colours and the default VAT rate. On invoices, partial invoices and credit notes, each line can carry its own rate, such as a reduced rate, or no VAT with a reverse-charge or exemption note. Enter the service date or period; project invoices take the period from the transaction dates.

03

Finalise and number the invoice

Finalising assigns the next number from the sequence for that invoice type and brand profile, for example RG-26-0148. Two people finalising at once get two consecutive numbers, so no number is used twice. Once finalised, the invoice can’t be deleted. The same step confirms a project invoice in Project Operations. If someone uses the Confirm button in Project Operations instead, the invoice is finalised and numbered the same way.

04

Send the PDF or generate the e-invoice

“Send To…” saves the invoice, opens the print dialog so you can save the PDF, then opens an email draft to your customer for you to attach it. Where an e-invoice is needed, generate ZUGFeRD or XRechnung: the checks run first, and the file is stored as a note on the invoice. Sending stays in your hands, through the channel each customer has agreed with you.

Two ways to use it, depending on how much of your invoicing you want to change.

Full accelerator

The full WBS Invoice Accelerator

For teams that want to create, finalise and correct their invoices in Dynamics 365 Sales and Project Operations: visual editor, brand profiles, invoice types, numbering and cancellations, in its own model-driven app, WBS Invoice Accelerator. Every full licence includes the e-invoice module.

E-invoice add-on

E-invoice buttons on your existing invoice form

For teams whose invoicing already works and who only need ZUGFeRD and XRechnung on top. It adds both to the invoice form you already use. The readable PDF inside the ZUGFeRD file uses the accelerator’s layout with your brand profile’s logo, colours and details instead of your current invoice template, so accounting signs off that layout before go-live.

Either way
For e-invoices, new fields need an owner: service date or period, a VAT category per tax rate, the customer’s VAT ID for reverse charge and, for public-sector buyers, the Leitweg-ID. The accelerator assigns the invoice number from a number sequence when the invoice is finalised, and the XML carries that number. Without a sequence for the invoice type, the invoice can’t be finalised.

Invoice types and corrections

Down payment, progress, final and corrective invoices in Dynamics 365

Construction companies, energy companies and engineering firms rely on progress billing: down payments, progress invoices and a final invoice. For Dynamics 365 Sales, the full accelerator brings seven invoice types: invoice, partial invoice, down payment, progress and final invoice, credit note and cancellation invoice. Project Operations corrections run through Microsoft’s corrective invoice. Each type prints with its own totals, and the same amounts go into the e-invoice.

Down payment and progress invoices state the advance

A down payment or progress invoice bills an advance on the order. The printed invoice shows the net, VAT and gross of the advance, and the e-invoice carries one line for it at the invoice’s VAT rate, so it states the amount billed now.

Final invoices deduct advances and partial invoices, with their VAT

A final invoice deducts the partial, down payment and progress invoices of the same order that have been issued and not cancelled. Drafts and cancelled invoices are left out. An advance that isn’t marked as paid is still deducted, with a warning; whether to issue the final invoice before the advance is paid is a question for your tax adviser. Each deduction prints with its net amount and VAT, and below the amount due the invoice states the VAT contained in the deductions. The e-invoice carries the same figures: the total deducted, a note listing each deduction and a reference to the latest one. If a deduction is incomplete, for example an advance without a stored amount, the e-invoice and the PDF export stop with a message that names the invoice.

Cancelling a Project Operations invoice

A confirmed project invoice is cancelled with Microsoft’s corrective invoice: billed actuals are reversed and the work becomes billable again. The correction is issued as a cancellation invoice with its own number and a reference to the original, and the original is marked cancelled once the correction is confirmed. A partial correction that lowers the amount is issued as a credit note, and one that raises it as a regular invoice.

Credit notes and cancellations with a reference

Credit notes and cancellation invoices refer to the original invoice. In Dynamics 365 Sales, cancelling creates a cancellation invoice with all lines, which gets its own number when it’s finalised; the amounts stay positive and the original is marked cancelled. Issued invoices cannot be deleted, and in the e-invoice both types carry type code 381.

Example

Final invoice RG-26-1498, Musterbau GmbH

Net amount

18,000.00

VAT 19 %

3,420.00

Gross amount

21,420.00

Less progress invoice RG-26-1490 dated 15 April 2026
Net 6,000.00 plus VAT (19 %) 1,140.00

-7,140.00

Less progress invoice RG-26-1494 dated 15 June 2026
Net 6,000.00 plus VAT (19 %) 1,140.00

-7,140.00

Total advances deducted

14,280.00

Amount due

7,140.00 EUR

The printed invoice shows each deduction with its net amount and VAT, the amount due and the VAT contained in the deductions (2,280.00 here). The XML carries the same figures: the total deducted, a note listing each progress invoice and a reference to the latest one.

Also built in

E-invoicing in Germany

ZUGFeRD, XRechnung and the German e-invoicing mandate for 2025, 2027 and 2028

Neither Dynamics 365 Sales nor Project Operations produces ZUGFeRD or XRechnung from the invoice in Dataverse. The accelerator builds one EN 16931 data model from the invoice, its lines and VAT rates, so there are no XML templates or field mappings to maintain. From it come ZUGFeRD for business customers (a readable PDF/A-3 with the structured invoice embedded as factur-x.xml) and XRechnung 3.0.2 for public-sector buyers, with the Leitweg-ID, the routing ID of German public-sector buyers, as buyer reference. If a rule fails, no file is created. Each file is stored as a note on the invoice it came from.

The mandate comes from Germany’s Growth Opportunities Act (Wachstumschancengesetz). It applies to invoices between businesses in Germany and takes effect in stages.

1 January 2025
Receive

Every business must be able to receive e-invoices

Since 2025 every business in Germany must be able to accept e-invoices in the EN 16931 format. An e-mail inbox is enough.

1 January 2027
Issue

Issuing above EUR 800,000 turnover, and for 2026 supplies

From 1 January 2027, companies whose total turnover in 2026 exceeded EUR 800,000 must issue domestic B2B invoices as e-invoices. Below that, paper or a PDF your customer agrees to stays allowed for supplies made in 2027. Whatever the turnover, a supply made in 2026 but invoiced in 2027 needs an e-invoice. Until the end of 2027, EDI can replace the e-invoice if your customer agrees.

1 January 2028
Issue

Issuing for every business

From 2028 every business must issue domestic B2B invoices as e-invoices, whatever its turnover. From then on, paper and plain PDF invoices are only allowed within the exceptions.

Exceptions
Exempt

What stays exempt

These stay outside the duty: small-amount invoices up to EUR 250 gross, tickets for passenger transport, invoices from businesses under the small-business rule (Kleinunternehmer), invoices to private customers and many VAT-exempt supplies, such as financial services or letting property.

BMF letter of 15 October 2025
Germany’s Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF) says the service date belongs in the structured part of an e-invoice. A file with format errors is not an e-invoice. Mistakes in the details VAT law requires on an invoice make it defective. A validation can flag them as business-rule errors, but some, such as a wrong VAT rate, can still pass. The ministry says a suitable validation tool can check the format and the business rules. Before any file exists, the WBS Invoice Accelerator checks the EN 16931 business rules (for XRechnung also the German BR-DE rules), creates no file when a rule fails, and keeps a summary of the check with each issued e-invoice.

As of September 2026. Ask your tax adviser how the rules apply to you.

For more background, read our articles on e-invoicing from Dynamics 365 Sales and e-invoicing for Dynamics 365 Project Operations. The finance ministry’s FAQ on e-invoicing covers the details, in German.

Process

What changes in your billing process

In our Dynamics 365 projects, six points come up again and again once the invoice and the e-invoice are built from the record.

01

Corrections move into the record

Many teams generate the invoice, open it in Word and adjust an amount, a text or a deduction before sending. When the document and the XML come from the record, every correction has to happen there, often with new fields, rules or approvals.

02

Deducting advances needs one agreed rule

The final invoice has to deduct the advances received and the VAT on them (§ 14 (5) sentence 2 UStG). The accelerator deducts every issued advance and partial invoice of the order that hasn’t been cancelled. An advance that isn’t marked as paid is still deducted, with a warning; whether to issue the final invoice before the advance is paid is a question for your tax adviser. Changes to the order after the first advance also need one agreed rule, applied the same way every time.

03

Corrections need a type and a reference

Negative invoices, overwritten amounts or a new invoice with an explanatory note are hard for your customer to follow, on paper and in an e-invoice. A cancellation invoice or credit note that refers to the original invoice shows the recipient what was corrected.

04

The service date becomes a field

Today it is often a sentence in the invoice text, such as “service date equals invoice date”. In the e-invoice it is a mandatory structured field, and your process has to say who enters it before the invoice is finalised.

05

Master data needs an owner

A country on every customer, VAT IDs, bank details on each brand profile, and for e-invoices the Leitweg-ID for public buyers and the VAT category per tax rate. If a detail the format requires is missing, no e-invoice is created. Who maintains this data, and when, is a process question.

06

Dispatch, receipt and archive change too

Someone has to decide who sends which file to which address, how incoming e-invoices are checked and what’s stored where for retention. These routines often shift without anyone planning for it.

From our projects
We work through these six points with your accounting team during the implementation, one invoice type at a time.

Implementation

Invoicing and e-invoicing in Dynamics 365: solution and implementation from one team

We built the WBS Invoice Accelerator, issue our own invoices with it and roll it out with your accounting team. Most of the implementation time goes into the billing processes around it.

Assessment of your current invoices

We look at your invoices and processes, one invoice type at a time, and show where record, document and daily practice drift apart.

Process changes with accounting and your tax adviser

Rules that lived in people’s heads are written down and, where your process needs it, built into the system: how advances are deducted, how corrections are made, who enters the service date and who approves what.

Customising where your business needs it

Where your process differs from the standard, we adapt fields, rules and screens to fit it.

Master data quality

We check customer and tax data against what your invoices and the e-invoice need and help you close the gaps before the first invoice goes out.

Support after go-live

We stay on hand for recipients’ first questions, for special cases and when the standards change. If a customer rejects an e-invoice, we help you find the cause.

Where does your invoicing stand today?

Send us ten invoices from last year that cover every invoice type you use, redacted if you like. We’ll agree a secure way to share them and tell you which processes change and what needs doing.

We know Dynamics 365 Sales, Project Operations and Dataverse from client projects, and invoicing from building the accelerator and using it for our own invoices. See how we approach Dynamics 365 Sales and Project Operations implementation and process consulting.

Hosting and data

Invoice data stays in your Dataverse environment, and the e-invoice service only reads it

Invoicing runs inside Dataverse. Only the e-invoice file is rendered outside it, by a small Azure Function. It doesn’t store invoices, and its logs hold technical data such as which invoice failed and why.

Where it runs

Hosted by WBS in Germany

WBS runs the service for you as an Azure Function in Germany (Azure region Germany West Central, Frankfurt), under a data processing agreement. It reads the invoice with a read-only identity and returns the file.

Test and production

One instance per environment

Production invoices run through a separate production instance of the service, never through a test instance.

How the service accesses your data

Getting started

Implementing the WBS Invoice Accelerator, and how the licence works

We install into your test environment and adapt the process with your accounting team, who sign off the result on your own invoices before anything goes to production.

01

Assessment

We go through your invoices and the processes behind them. You get a list of what changes, and the quote for the implementation follows from it.

02

Installation in your test environment

The managed solution goes into your test environment and is connected to a render service instance that we run for it. We set up brand profiles, number sequences, VAT rates and categories, text templates, the new fields and the master-data checklist.

03

Acceptance on your own invoices

Every invoice type you use goes through the check, including final invoices with advances, credit notes and cancellations, and in Project Operations the confirmation and corrective invoices. Your accounting team signs off on content and layout.

04

Go-live and support

We import into production, hand accounting a short guide and stay on hand after go-live.

Pricing model

Licensed per environment

The implementation is quoted once we have seen your invoices. Prices on request.

What you need: Dynamics 365 Sales or Dynamics 365 Project Operations with invoices in Dataverse, and seller data for each brand profile (legal name, VAT ID or tax number, bank details). For e-invoices you also need an IBAN on the brand profile, a VAT category per tax rate, a country on every customer and the service date or period on every invoice. Reverse charge and supplies to EU customers need the buyer’s VAT ID, and public-sector buyers need an invoice e-mail address, the Leitweg-ID and a seller contact with phone and e-mail.

Questions

Frequently asked questions about Dynamics 365 invoicing and e-invoicing

Short answers to the questions we hear most often. Didn’t find yours? Write to us.

For invoicing, yes. The visual editor, brand profiles, number sequences, VAT per line and foreign-currency invoices work for businesses in other countries too. Each brand profile sets the locale for dates, numbers and amounts and the paper size (A4 or US Letter), and addresses print in German or US style. There are limits: the interface and the printed labels are in German or English; invoice types, numbering and locking are modelled on German practice; bank details use IBAN and BIC; and tax works as VAT with one rate per line, so stacked sales taxes aren’t supported. The invoice overview currently shows dates and totals in German format, and its totals assume one currency. The e-invoice formats are ZUGFeRD and XRechnung. Formats for other countries aren’t included, and there’s no Peppol or other network delivery. Tell us what you need and we’ll check it against these limits.

Yes. Each brand profile has its own legal name, logo, colours, address, tax and registration details, bank details, paper size, locale, default VAT rate and default price list. Number sequences and text templates can be set up per brand profile. You pick the profile on each invoice, and it can’t be changed on the form or in the editor once the invoice is issued. The overview and its totals cover all brand profiles together. For companies in different countries or with different accounting currencies, we check the setup with you first.

When it’s finalised. Until then it carries only the draft ID that Dynamics 365 assigns, such as ENTWURF-01053, and can still be deleted. Finalising assigns the next number from the sequence for that invoice type and brand profile, for example RG-26-0148. Two people finalising at once get two consecutive numbers, so no number is used twice. An issued invoice can’t be deleted. The year in the number is the year you finalise, and the counter keeps running into the next year unless you reset it. In Project Operations, the Confirm button finalises and numbers the invoice the same way.

Yes. Invoices from the Project Operations invoice run or from the “Create invoice” action on a project contract get a draft ID, a legal invoice number and, on request, the e-invoice, the same way Sales invoices do. Finalising an invoice confirms it in Project Operations, so the billed actuals are recorded as usual, and if someone uses the Confirm button in Project Operations instead, the invoice is finalised and numbered the same way. The service period comes from the transaction dates. A confirmed project invoice is cancelled with Microsoft’s corrective invoice, which reverses the billed actuals; the correction is issued as a cancellation invoice with its own number and a reference to the original. A partial correction that lowers the amount is issued as a credit note, and one that raises it as a regular invoice. There’s no Field Service integration of its own; Field Service work that’s billed through Project Operations arrives as a project invoice like any other.

No. The WBS Invoice Accelerator works on the invoice table in Dataverse that Dynamics 365 Sales and Project Operations use. Finance & Operations and Business Central bring their own e-invoicing features, with a wide choice of specialised vendors. If Project Operations is integrated with Dynamics 365 Finance, project invoices are issued in Finance, and that’s where the e-invoice belongs. If you run Sales next to one of these systems, invoices are usually issued in only one of them, and that system decides the tool. We’re happy to talk through your setup.

Not out of the box. Neither app creates ZUGFeRD or XRechnung from the invoice in Dataverse, and Microsoft’s e-invoicing features belong to Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations and Business Central. The WBS Invoice Accelerator adds both formats to the standard invoice that Sales and Project Operations use, either as buttons on your existing invoice form or together with the full accelerator, which adds invoice types and legal invoice numbers. With the buttons, your workflows and your quote and order templates stay as they are. Corrections you make in Word or the PDF today have to move into the record, because that’s where the XML comes from.

Receiving has been mandatory for all domestic B2B invoices since 1 January 2025; an e-mail inbox is enough. For issuing, the date of the supply decides. Supplies made in 2025 and 2026 can still be invoiced on paper, or as a PDF if your customer agrees, but only if the invoice goes out by 31 December 2026. A 2026 supply that’s invoiced in 2027 needs an e-invoice, whatever your turnover. Supplies made in 2027 can be invoiced on paper or as an agreed PDF until 31 December 2027 if your total turnover in 2026 was no more than EUR 800,000; above that, they need e-invoices. Until the end of 2027, EDI can replace the e-invoice wherever one is needed, if your customer agrees. From 2028 e-invoices are mandatory for every business. Small-amount invoices up to EUR 250 gross, tickets for passenger transport, invoices from Kleinunternehmer and invoices to consumers are exempt, and so are many VAT-exempt supplies. Ask your tax adviser how this applies to you.

ZUGFeRD for business customers, XRechnung for public-sector buyers. ZUGFeRD is a readable PDF/A-3 with the invoice data embedded as factur-x.xml, in profile EN 16931 (ZUGFeRD 2.3.3, technically identical to Factur-X 1.07.3). The German tax authority accepts ZUGFeRD from version 2.0.1, except the MINIMUM and BASIC WL profiles. XRechnung 3.0.2 is XML only and carries the buyer’s Leitweg-ID. Both are built from the same data model, and each invoice gets one of the two formats. There’s no official certification body for ZUGFeRD or XRechnung. Before each file, the accelerator runs the EN 16931 business rules and Schematron plus its own checks, and for XRechnung also the BR-DE rules and the KoSIT Schematron. In testing, XRechnung files passed the KoSIT validator and ZUGFeRD files passed veraPDF as PDF/A-3b.

Through the amounts and the references. A down payment or progress invoice states the advance as one line, so the e-invoice shows what’s billed now. A final invoice deducts the partial, down payment and progress invoices of the same order that were issued and not cancelled. Its XML carries the total deducted, the amount still due, a note listing each deduction with its net amount, VAT and gross, and a reference to the latest one, because the CII format allows only one. An advance that isn’t marked as paid is still deducted, with a warning; whether to issue the final invoice before the advance is paid is a question for your tax adviser. Credit notes and cancellation invoices carry type code 381 with a reference to the original; all other invoices carry 380.

In Dataverse, except for one step: WBS renders the file for you with a small Azure Function in Germany (Azure region Germany West Central, Frankfurt), under a data processing agreement. The Function doesn’t store invoices, and its logs hold technical data such as which invoice failed and why. It reads with a read-only identity and can’t write to your business data. The file is stored as a note on the invoice.

There’s no fee per invoice and none per user. The accelerator is licensed per environment, and the implementation is quoted once we’ve seen your invoices and processes. Prices are on request.

No. The WBS Invoice Accelerator creates outgoing invoices and e-invoices; it doesn’t read incoming ones. The duty to receive e-invoices has applied since 1 January 2025, and an e-mail inbox meets it. How incoming files are checked, forwarded and archived still needs a clear process, so we cover it in the process work during the implementation.

Next step

See it on your own invoices

In a short meeting we’ll take a Sales invoice and a Project Operations invoice through the whole flow on a demo system: the draft in the visual editor, brand profiles, finalising and numbering, cancellation, ZUGFeRD and XRechnung. Bring a few of your own invoices and we’ll go through what would change for them.

Working with Dynamics 365 beyond invoicing? See more WBS products.