When to use export vs other paths
The Export feature is for getting your data out as files. The most common reasons:
- Year-end — your accountant needs everything from January 1 to December 31 of last year.
- A quarter at a time — for VAT filings (most EU countries file quarterly).
- Switching tools — moving to a different bookkeeping system that can ingest JSON.
- Audit / due diligence — a one-shot file you can hand to an auditor or attach to a corporate transaction.
- Personal archive — your own records, separately from our cloud.
Most people don't actually need Export at all. If you work with an accountant, the much better path is invite your tax advisor — they get continuous read-only access to live data, you don't have to remember to export anything, and any corrections you make after export propagate to them automatically. Export is for the cases where files are actually the deliverable.
The walk-through
Step 1 — open the export page
In the web app, go to Settings → Export. The page shows current export options, a date-range picker, and any in-progress or recent exports.
Step 2 — pick a date range
The picker has three quick-set options and a custom range:
- Previous calendar year — January 1 to December 31 of last year. Most common for year-end.
- Current quarter — for VAT filings.
- Year-to-date — January 1 of the current year to today.
- Custom range — any from/to dates.
Date semantics: the range applies to invoice date by default (the date printed on the invoice itself, not when you uploaded it). Toggle to upload date if you want everything that arrived in a period regardless of when the underlying invoice was dated. Most year-end exports use invoice date.
Step 3 — optional filters
You can narrow the export by:
- Document type — invoice / receipt / statement. Leave all selected for a full export.
- Vendor — pick one or more vendors. Useful for vendor-specific audits or for splitting a year across cost centres.
- Status — approved only, or include pending. Most year-end exports include both (an "approved-only" export is a subset).
For multi-company accounts, run one export per company. The current export is scoped to whichever company you have active in the company switcher.
Step 4 — generate
Click Export. For small ranges (a few hundred documents) the file is ready in a few seconds and a download button appears. For large ranges (a full calendar year on a Business or Growth account) the export runs as a background job — you'll get an in-app notification plus an email when it's ready, typically within 1–5 minutes.
Step 5 — download
Click the download link in the notification or back on the export page. The link expires after 1 hour — that's a security constraint, not a UI quirk. Re-run the export for a fresh link if you miss the window. We don't store generated exports permanently; each request builds a fresh file from current data.
What's in the export today
Format: JSON. One file containing all documents in your range. Each document is one object with:
- Document metadata: ID, upload date, source (web upload / forwarded email / mobile / external import), original filename, content type.
- All extracted fields: vendor name, vendor address, vendor VAT ID, invoice number, invoice date, due date, currency, net / VAT rate / VAT amount / gross, line items (quantity, unit, price, line total each), category.
- Your corrections: which fields you edited manually, with the timestamp.
- Bank-match status: matched / unmatched / partial-match, plus the matched-transaction reference where applicable.
- A signed URL to the original file (PDF / image) in our storage — valid for 7 days from export generation; re-export for a fresh URL.
The JSON is UTF-8, pretty-printed, with key ordering stable across exports (so a diff between two exports of the same range produces minimal noise — useful for change tracking).
CSV and PDF formats are on the 2026 roadmap. We'll announce them on the changelog. Until then, JSON is structured enough that any spreadsheet tool (Excel via Power Query, Google Sheets via importJSON), Python / R / Julia script, or accounting software with a JSON importer can ingest it. See CSV and PDF export status for the workaround status.
DATEV and other accounting interchange formats
DATEV (Germany's accounting-data interchange standard) export exists in the backend for users who explicitly need it but is not yet surfaced in Settings → Export. If you need a DATEV export, write to [email protected] with [TECHNICAL] DATEV export in the subject — we'll generate it manually within 1–3 working days.
We're explicitly not surfacing DATEV as a default UI feature because TaxItEasy targets EU-international users, not Germany-only. DATEV is a German market need; we serve it on request rather than implying universal availability.
For other accounting-system formats (SAP CSV, Xero CSV, QuickBooks IIF, Sage equivalent), the JSON export contains all the source data; your accountant or accounting tool's import wizard handles the field mapping. We don't ship per-tool integrations because the mapping is rarely consistent across users — a custom mapping in your accounting tool is usually a 30-minute task and stays under your control.
If your accountant wants access instead of files
Most tax advisors and accountants prefer continuous read-only access over year-end ZIPs. Reasons:
- Always current — they see corrections you made yesterday, without waiting for your next export.
- Less email back-and-forth — they can flag issues directly in the app; you fix and it returns to their queue automatically.
- Better audit trail — every flag and approval is logged with their identity, not muddled in a forwarded ZIP.
Invite them with the invite your tax advisor flow. They get read-only access to your invoices, transactions, and trading partners — not your billing, not your team, not other companies you might have. If they want files anyway (some firms require it for archival), they can run their own export from inside their advisor view.
Troubleshooting
The export is empty / has fewer documents than I expected. Check the date semantics. Default is invoice date, not upload date. A receipt you uploaded last Monday with an invoice date from three weeks ago won't be in a "last week" upload-date export but will be in an invoice-date export of three weeks ago. Toggle to upload date if you want intake-based filtering.
My download link expired. Re-run the export from Settings → Export. We don't store generated exports permanently — each request builds a fresh file from current data, which is also what you usually want (any corrections since the last export are included).
I need DATEV format. See the DATEV section above — write to [email protected] with [TECHNICAL] DATEV export for a manual generation.
Export for a multi-company account. Switch companies in the company switcher first, then run the export. Each export is scoped to one company. For a combined view across companies, run separate exports and combine the JSON files (the schema is identical, so concatenation works).
I deleted my account but I still want my data. Export everything first, then delete. After account deletion + 30-day grace period, your encryption key is destroyed and the data becomes cryptographically unrecoverable. See delete your account and export your data for the deletion flow with the data-first ordering.
The original-file links in the JSON return 404. The signed URLs are valid for 7 days from export generation. After that, the document is still in our storage; re-export to get fresh signed URLs. If a document was deleted from the app between export and download, that link 404s permanently — the document isn't recoverable.
Related
- Invite your tax advisor — the better path for accountants
- CSV and PDF export status — workaround until they ship
- Understanding the VAT aggregation view — for quarterly VAT exports
- What the AI reads, and how to correct it — fix fields before exporting