GoBD (German bookkeeping principles)
GoBD are Germany’s principles for the proper keeping and retention of books and records in electronic form, including their tamper-proof, auditable storage.
GoBD is the German acronym for the principles governing the proper management and storage of books, records and documents in electronic form, and for data access by the tax authorities. In essence, business records created or held digitally — including sales, invoices and the underlying transaction data — must be complete, accurate, timely, orderly, unalterable and retained for the statutory period, in a form auditors can inspect. Any software that produces tax-relevant records has to support these requirements, for example by preventing silent changes and keeping a verifiable audit trail. For a German campground, GoBD applies to the point-of-sale and billing data generated by the shop, restaurant and reservations, and it works alongside the TSE requirement for cash registers. Choosing software that is GoBD-compliant matters because the operator, not the vendor, is ultimately responsible for records that stand up to a tax audit.