In short: Shopify has no built-in DATEV export. There are four typical routes for Shopify data into DATEV: your own exports from Shopify, an export app from the Shopify App Store, DATEV's own data service, which only transfers payments and no revenue, or e-commerce accounting software that reconciles orders, payment providers and payouts and turns them into journal entries for DATEV. They differ in which data they take over and how much preparation is left to you or your tax advisor. A good test: can every bank payout be explained to the cent at month-end?

KudTax belongs to the fourth group. It connects to Shopify through an app, matches orders, payments, fees, refunds and payouts with AI assistance, and hands the entries over as a DATEV file or through a direct DATEV interface.

This guide is for Shopify merchants whose books are kept in Germany and for accounting firms with Shopify clients. Most German tax advisors work with DATEV, so sooner or later the question is the same: how do Shopify sales and payouts get there without someone rebuilding them in a spreadsheet every month?

What DATEV needs from Shopify

"Getting orders into DATEV" sounds like a single file. In reality, a Shopify month has three layers of data, and each lands on different accounts:

Layer	What belongs to it	Where it comes from
Revenue	Orders with VAT rate and destination country, shipping, discounts, refunds	Order export or Shopify API
Cash flow	Payments per payment method, payouts, chargebacks, reserves	Shopify Payments, PayPal and other providers separately
Costs	Transaction fees, Shopify subscription, app invoices	Payout details and monthly invoices

Revenue is usually the easy part. Cash flow is where it gets difficult. Shopify Payments pays out lump sums with fees and refunds already deducted. PayPal runs through its own account and pays out separately. With bank transfer prepayment, money goes straight to your bank account. A bank entry of €4,812.37 therefore tells your tax advisor nothing about which orders it contains.

To book it traceably, these links have to survive: order number, invoice number, transaction ID, payment provider and payout reference. Without them, an unexplained balance remains on the clearing account at month-end that nobody can resolve. Our article on Shopify accounting in 2026 shows how the accounts are set up.

Two cases need a rule of their own. Gift cards are not necessarily revenue when they are sold; under German VAT law, whether VAT arises at sale or only at redemption depends on whether they are single-purpose or multi-purpose vouchers (Section 3 (13) to (15) UStG). And if you run several shops, each needs its own invoice number range so numbers never overlap. More on vouchers in our guide to returns, chargebacks and gift cards.

Option 1: Prepare Shopify's own exports

Shopify gives you the raw data as CSV files. Under Orders you find the order export with items and VAT rates. In the Finance and Payouts section you can export the payout report, which shows the money side. Invoices for your subscription, apps and fees are available in the Shopify admin.

From these files you build a DATEV journal batch in a spreadsheet, or you hand them to your tax advisor, who does it for you. There is no licence cost, but it takes time every month. Three things go wrong most often: refunds paid in a different month from the order, payouts that cross month-end, and PayPal payments that never appear in the Shopify payout report.

Works for: small shops with few orders and one payment method. Beyond a few hundred orders a month, spreadsheet reconciliation becomes a permanent job.

Option 2: An export app from the Shopify App Store

Several apps in the Shopify App Store produce data as a DATEV journal batch. Most of them cover one part of the month:

Some apps create a journal batch with one entry per VAT rate from a month's orders and refunds, sometimes together with an OSS report.
Others split Shopify Payments payouts into individual transactions and book gross amount, fee and refund separately. Other payment providers are usually missing.

Apps like these are quick to set up and inexpensive. Their limit is data created outside Shopify Payments. If some customers pay with PayPal, that part is missing from the reconciliation, and your advisor keeps booking it by hand.

Works for: shops that collect almost everything through Shopify Payments, and merchants whose tax advisor handles payment reconciliation anyway.

Option 3: DATEV's data service for Shopify payments

DATEV itself offers the "DATEV Datenservice Zahlungsdienstleister für Shopify". Important up front: the service only transfers payment transactions from Shopify. It does not import revenue entries from your orders, meaning sales by VAT rate and destination country.

According to the DATEV marketplace, it turns the payment data into suggested entries and matches the payments to invoice entries. The suggestions can be reviewed and edited in an online application. Pricing starts at €10 a month according to the listing (as of 23 October 2026).

For you and your tax advisor this means revenue has to reach DATEV by a second route, for example an export app or your outgoing invoices. Only then are there invoice entries the service can match the payments to. According to its own notes, DATEV only checks whether the file can be read in technically, not whether the data is correct in substance.

Works for: accounting firms that already book revenue into DATEV another way and only want to match the Shopify payments.

Option 4: E-commerce accounting software with payment reconciliation

The fourth group consists of tools that take orders from Shopify and payments from all connected payment providers, reconcile them with each other and with the bank payout, and create journal entries for DATEV. DATEV remains your tax advisor's accounting system; the software feeds it finished entries. At first glance the offers look alike. Differences show in four places:

Connected payment providers: some tools cover only Shopify Payments and PayPal, others also Stripe and further sales channels such as Amazon or eBay.
How far reconciliation goes: some only link order and payment. The month is only truly reconciled once the payout is also matched to the bank receipt.
Handling of exceptions: partial refunds, chargebacks and reserves should stay visible as open items rather than disappear in a summary entry.
Route into DATEV: as a file, via API or through a direct DATEV interface.

KudTax connects to Shopify through an app and takes over orders, payouts, refunds, fees and gift cards, including from several shops. PayPal and Stripe are connected directly. Matching is AI-assisted, entries are created based on SKR03 or SKR04 and reach the tax advisor as a DATEV file or through a direct DATEV interface.

Pricing for these tools usually depends on order volume. Compare against your own volume and every payment method you actually use.

Works for: shops with several payment methods, several shops or other marketplaces alongside Shopify, and accounting firms that want reconciled data rather than raw exports.

The four options compared

	Option 1: Own exports	Option 2: Export app	Option 3: DATEV data service	Option 4: E-commerce accounting software
Revenue from orders	by hand	yes	no, payments only	yes
Shopify Payments payout split	by hand	depends on app	yes	yes
PayPal and other providers	by hand	usually not	no	depends on vendor
Reconciled with bank receipt	by hand	rarely	in DATEV	yes
Route into DATEV	file	file	directly in DATEV	file, direct interface with some vendors
Ongoing effort	high	medium	medium, mostly at the firm	low, review exceptions

The table describes typical cases, and the boundaries are fluid: an export app can also be part of a broader solution. Individual apps can do more or less, so the test in the next section tells you more than any feature list.

File or direct interface?

The classic route into DATEV is the journal batch: a CSV file in DATEV format (EXTF) that your tax advisor imports into DATEV Kanzlei-Rechnungswesen or that is provided via DATEV Unternehmen online. Almost every tool supports it. The downside is that someone has to create, send and import the file every month, and import errors only show up at the firm. Our checklist for DATEV import errors covers the most common ones and how to fix them.

A direct DATEV interface transfers entries without sending files around. That saves steps and makes transfer errors less likely. Ask your tax advisor which route they prefer before you choose a tool. Some firms want to see every file before import; others want as little manual handling as possible. What a good DATEV file for online sellers should contain is explained in our article on DATEV exports for online retailers.

How to test an option before you commit

Feature lists look alike across vendors. A real month shows the differences. Take a closed month and work through these steps:

Resolve one payout to the cent. Pick a Shopify Payments payout with at least one refund. Do payments, fees and refunds add up exactly to the bank receipt?
Check PayPal separately. Do all PayPal payments, refunds and fees of the month appear? Not every payment has been paid out to your bank yet: whatever is still in the PayPal account has to remain traceable as a balance.
Test month-end. An order on the 30th with a payout on the 2nd of the following month must run cleanly through the clearing account.
Run special cases. A gift card, a partial refund, a chargeback, a delivery to another EU country. How is each booked?
Import the file once. Ask your tax advisor to read the test month into DATEV. You can run a first format check beforehand with our free DATEV export validator.
Look at the clearing account. At month-end, only explainable items should remain: payouts in transit, reserves or PayPal balance not yet paid out.

If the process passes these checks, you have a reliable basis for handing over data regularly. Reviewing the entries and closing the month stay with your bookkeeper or tax advisor. Should the process already fail at step 2, your advisor will keep doing rework, however good the rest looks. General selection criteria are in our guide to choosing e-commerce accounting software.

Connecting Shopify and DATEV with KudTax

With KudTax you connect Shopify through an app, no developer needed. KudTax reads orders, payouts, refunds, fees and gift cards, from several shops in one account if you need it. PayPal, Stripe and other channels such as Amazon or eBay can be added. Each payout is matched, with AI assistance, to the payments, fees and refunds it contains; anything that does not add up stays visible as an open difference. The result is journal entries based on SKR03 or SKR04 that reach your tax advisor as a DATEV file or through the direct DATEV interface. Year-end closing and tax returns stay with you or your accountant. The Shopify integration page shows how the connection works.

KudTax is free for up to 25 orders a month, and larger plans can be tried free for one month: create an account. If you would rather look at KudTax with sample data first, request demo access.

Frequently asked questions

Does Shopify have a built-in DATEV export?

No. Shopify provides order and payout data as CSV files, but no journal batch in DATEV format. For that you need an app, the DATEV data service or e-commerce accounting software, or your tax advisor prepares the exports.

How do I get Shopify payouts into DATEV?

The payout itself is only a transfer from the Shopify clearing account to the bank. For DATEV to make sense of it, the payout has to be broken down into payments, fees, refunds and chargebacks. Export apps for Shopify Payments, the DATEV data service and e-commerce accounting software do this.

Is a Shopify app enough for the DATEV export?

Often yes, if you collect almost everything through Shopify Payments. If you also use PayPal or bank transfer prepayment, or sell on marketplaces too, a pure export app only covers part of it. Check with a real payout before you decide.

What do I need for Shopify and DATEV if I use PayPal?

PayPal pays out separately from Shopify and needs its own clearing account. The route into DATEV therefore has to pull PayPal payments directly from PayPal and match them to Shopify orders. Our guide to payment provider accounting explains how to book PayPal.

What does my German tax advisor need from my Shopify store?

At minimum: revenue per VAT rate and destination country, a breakdown of every payout with fees and refunds, and the invoices behind the fees. Ideally all of it arrives as a DATEV journal batch or through a DATEV interface, with order and transaction references intact. Agree on the format with your advisor before you pick a tool.

Shopify to DATEV: 4 Ways to Get Sales and Payouts In