The backup and portability of your company data is an essential part of responsible system administration. If you are an administrator, a member of management, or work in accounting, this article will support you in exporting relevant data from Xentral. Here you will find an overview of all options for data export from Xentral, including a variety of references to other useful resources in our Help Center.
Whether for an external audit, archiving at the end of the fiscal year, or as preparation for an ERP system change – Xentral offers you various self-service tools with which you can efficiently export all relevant information. The focus is on providing machine-readable formats (such as CSV or PDF) that both meet the tax law requirements of the GoBD and enable flexible further processing of your system data. In the following sections, you will learn step-by-step how to securely and independently export documents, master data, and machine movement data from your Xentral instance.
Important
Please note that you must carry out all self-service exports described here before the end of your contract term. After the end of the contract, access to your Xentral instance will be blocked and the data will be deleted routinely and automatically afterwards.
Xentral deliberately does not offer a download of a raw, complete database backup (SQL dump). This protects proprietary system internals and our intellectual property rights. Instead, we ensure that you can export all relevant and customer-generated data in common, machine-readable formats (such as CSV or PDF).
The following modules and steps allow you to export all tax-relevant documents from Xentral.
All generated documents must be available in the original format in an audit-proof manner. The PDF archiving module bundles these documents based on a time period and makes them available for download.
Proceed as follows to download all generated documents:
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Use the Smart Search to open the PDF archiving module.
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Select the desired period and the document type (e.g., sales invoices, credit notes, purchase invoices).
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Then download all documents for the respective year as a collected ZIP file.
Note
PDF archiving only backups the documents generated by the system. Individually uploaded file attachments (for example liabilities, in projects or products) are not included here.
Further information is available in the article Export all invoices and documents as PDF (PDF archiving)
Proceed as follows to export movement data (GoBD/FiBu export) from Xentral in a machine-readable format.
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Navigate to Accounting > DATEVconnect Online (or Accounting > Accounting Export).
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Select the period and export accounts receivable, liabilities, invoices, and credit notes.
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Also export the bank data (this often already happens through the monthly DATEV transfer).
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Save the files in one of the common CSV or XML formats.
Tip
A detailed overview specifically for the area of accounting can be found in our guide: Archiving & exports in accounting (practical overview).
Further manual articles on setting up the DATEV export and other FiBu exports in Xentral can be found in the following articles:
If you want to export data from Xentral for a change to another system, you can use our Import/Export Center module for this. There you can export master data and document data in a structured manner and download it for further processing.
Proceed as follows to carry out the export:
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Use the Smart Search to open the Import / Export Center module.
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Click on Master data export.
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Click on + Create new.
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Create a separate export template for each required data source (e.g., addresses, products, orders). Here you can select the source tables, define fields, and filter by date or project.
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Click on Save.
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Open the Start export tab.
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Download the file as CSV or XLS.
Note
You can carry out standard exports yourself directly via the functions described. If particularly extensive, individual, or technically complex data exports are required in connection with a system change in accordance with the Data Act (EU Regulation 2023/2854), additional costs may be incurred for this.
The following articles contain further information on the export of master data, product master data, and address master data:
For customers who have booked the Reporting module (also referred to as Analytics Add-on) in their contract, Xentral offers a particularly convenient solution for the mass export of system data.
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Open the menu Reporting > Reports.
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Search for the report collection [08] FTP backup and BI reports.
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Open the pre-built reports for the overall export (e.g., All products, All addresses, All orders).
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Select your export method:
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Download: Click on Export (CSV) at the top right.
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Permalink / API: Generate an access link under Export settings > Permalink.
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Automated FTP export: Set up the direct transfer to your server under Export settings > FTP export.
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Tip
Check out the following further articles on the subject of the reports module and data export to learn more:
The automated mass exports (Import/Export Center, FiBu export, PDF archiving) primarily include your structured database entries (e.g., as a CSV file) as well as the documents generated by Xentral.
Files individually uploaded by you to Xentral are not automatically downloaded with these standard exports. These include, among others:
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Manually uploaded purchase invoices/documents from suppliers (to liabilities)
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Product images and product documents
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Stored letterheads, logos, or fonts
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Manual file attachments in projects, tickets, or documents
To view and export these files, you can use the File browser module. Proceed as follows:
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Use the Smart Search to open the File browser module.
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Navigate through the folder structure to the respective uploaded files.
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Download the required documents and attachments manually.
Important
Please ensure that you always archive original documents (especially tax-relevant purchase invoices) in your own file storage or a primary document management system (DMS).
Further information on the File Browser can be found in the article File browser.