E-invoicing in
mixed invoice intake

With the introduction of e-invoicing, invoice exchange in the B2B sector is changing. Structured electronic invoices based on EN 16931 are increasingly becoming a prerequisite for business transactions.

Formats such as XRechnung or ZUGFeRD enable invoice data to be processed directly by machines. This creates new opportunities for efficiency and automation.

At the same time, a transition phase is emerging in which different formats coexist and must be processed in parallel.

The expectation that e-invoicing will standardize invoice intake contrasts with operational reality. Invoices still exist in different formats:

• traditional PDF invoices
• scanned documents
• structured e-invoices (e.g. XRechnung)
• hybrid formats such as ZUGFeRD

These formats differ both technically and in how data is provided. Companies therefore process not either e-invoices or PDFs, but both at the same time.

E-invoices are based on standardized data structures that enable direct processing.

• XRechnung: A purely structured XML format based on EN 16931, containing all relevant invoice data in machine-readable form.
• ZUGFeRD: A hybrid format combining a visual PDF with embedded XML data.

In contrast, traditional PDF or scanned documents require information to be identified and extracted before processing.

In practice, this leads to mixed input scenarios with different processing requirements.

Unterschiedliche Rechnungsformate erfordern unterschiedliche Verarbeitungslogiken. Strukturierte E-Rechnungen können direkt eingelesen werden, während unstrukturierte Dokumente analysiert und inhaltlich interpretiert werden müssen.

For existing system landscapes, the challenge lies in integrating different data sources into a unified process. The complexity is not in a single format, but in the combination of multiple formats within one process.

bluDELTA operates at the point of document intake and processes different invoice formats within a unified system logic.

It automatically identifies whether a document is a structured e-invoice or an unstructured document and applies the appropriate processing:

• Structured data is ingested directly
• Content from PDFs or scans is extracted
• All information is transformed into a unified data structure

This creates a consistent and system-ready data foundation for ERP and business systems, regardless of the original format.

Processing mixed invoice inputs is part of the end-to-end document processing in bluDELTA.

Several modules interact:

• Class & Split: identifies documents and formats
• Extract: processes unstructured content
• Mapping: · consolidates data and prepares it for systems

This creates a stable data flow, regardless of the original invoice format.