Before your first invoice
When creating an account, read and agree to the terms of use, including the data processing agreement for business customers. The privacy notice explains data use and your rights. Agreement is separate from any optional marketing consent; the free beta requires no payment card.
Save your real business name, postal address, seller contact and applicable tax identifier in Settings. Add payment instructions and a numbering pattern. These values prefill new drafts; review the actual invoice before generating it.
Product tour
The first time you open the workspace, FakturFokus offers a one-minute tour of creating invoices, checking supplier invoices, saved customers and products, and keyboard navigation. Use Next and Back (or the arrow keys) to move through it, and Skip tour or Escape to close it; it won’t open on its own again. To see it again, open Settings → Appearance & language and choose Restart tour, or use Take the product tour in the account menu. Whether you finished or skipped the tour is saved with your account, so it applies on every device.
Customer references
Ask your customer for their required reference. A government customer may provide a Leitweg-ID. A reference used for one customer is not automatically correct for another. Save customer defaults only after confirming them. In Customers, set Customer type to Public sector for authorities and public bodies, then enter their Leitweg-ID; use Business for companies and enter a purchase-order or other reference if they gave one.
Keep numbering deliberate
Use a pattern such as RE-{YYYY}-{####}. Check the next number against your existing invoicing system before switching tools. Drafts, customers and products remain until you delete them; generated files have a separate expiry.
Appearance and keyboard shortcuts
In the workspace, open the account menu at the bottom of the sidebar, or Settings → Appearance & language, and choose Light, Dark or System. On public pages, documentation and the sign-in screen, use the display button (sun, moon or screen icon) in the header. System follows your device appearance. Your preference is saved in this browser and applies everywhere.
Use Command on Mac or Ctrl on Windows: K opens workspace navigation or focuses knowledge search, Shift+F focuses page search, Enter runs the page’s main action — starts an invoice, adds a customer, product or invoice line, opens the received-file picker, starts or reviews an import, or fixes or duplicates the open document — and S saves the current draft or editable form. FakturFokus detects your device: buttons show their shortcut as ⌘ on Mac and Ctrl on Windows and Linux, and only that key triggers it. Shortcuts act only when the corresponding control is available; disabled controls stay disabled, and generating, importing for real, deleting and paying always need a click. An open dialog limits saving to that dialog. Use Command/Ctrl+/ or Keyboard shortcuts in the account menu (or the display menu on public pages) to see the full list. Escape closes dialogs or clears knowledge search.
Saved data and figures
If saved data cannot load, use Try again next to the error. A failed background update keeps the saved rows and your current form edits visible. If your session is rejected, sign in again; unsaved editor memory is cleared.
Choosing a saved customer explicitly links a new invoice and its saved draft to that customer. You can remove the link in the editor. Older invoices without a link remain unassigned; customers with the same name are not combined. Overview and customer figures include retained, unexpired documents only, with invoice and credit-note amounts shown separately for each currency. Deleting or expiring documents changes those figures, without reversing billing usage.
Draft search and last-changed filters cover all saved drafts before paging. Use Previous and Next to browse drafts, customers, products and import history. Customer/product searches cover the bounded saved collection; import search covers the current page. The existing limit is 200 saved drafts, 200 profiles and 200 products.