Fiscal Middleware – Release 1.3.1

The new version 1.3.1 of the RetailForce Fiskal Middleware is now available.

You can find the software download at: https://retailforce.cloud/downloads/.

In version 1.3.1, further stabilisation measures have been implemented. Among other things, the timeout when using an online signature creation device (HSM) in Austria was reduced to 3 seconds. If the signature web service does not respond within this time, the FiskalClient calculates an “offline signature”, compliant with the RKSV. In this case, the note “Security device failed” must be printed on the receipt. The message is, as always, returned within the FiscalResponse in the field “PrintMessage”.

In previous versions of the middleware, it happened in certain exceptional cases that the PaymentType.Cash was not resolved correctly. This bug has been fixed in the current version. We therefore recommend updating all systems in Germany to v1.3.1.

First Beta

This version 1.3.1 also includes a first beta version for Romania.

General note on updates

In general, we recommend that you always use the latest version of Fiskal Middleware and, if you are using older versions, update to the latest version Support for regular versions is discontinued after 6 months, for LTS versions after one year. LTS versions are marked as such.

Summertime is vacation time

We are proud of our team, which has done a great job over the last years and months. Therefore, we think our team has earned some time off. We kindly ask for your understanding if there are longer waiting times in the processing of your requests during the holiday season.

Thank you very much!

We wish you a great summer
Your RetailForce Team

Expiry of the TSE certificate “Bundesdruckerei D-TRUST”

In its letter dated 8 July 2022, the German Federal Ministry of Finance informs about the expiry of the certificate of the technical security device “Bundesdruckerei D-TRUST TSE, Version 1.0” of cv cryptovision GmbH.

The current certificate “BSI-K-TR-0491-2021”, for the above-mentioned TSE, is only valid for a limited period until 07.01.2023. According to the BSI, the requirements for connection certification according to the technical guidelines “BSI TR-03153-2 Regulation 2” have not yet been met at present.

More information is available on the BSI website:

Sources:

Maintenance work – FinanzOnline offline

The Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance informs that the service “FinanzOnline” will not be available next Wednesday, 6 July 2022, in the period from 15:30 to presumably 18:30, due to maintenance work. Furthermore, there may also be disruptions between 18:30 and 19:30.

Cash register notifications (registrations, deregistrations, failure notification of the signature creation unit) occurring during this period are buffered by the RetailForce Fiscal system and forwarded to FinanzOnline as soon as the portal is available again without restrictions. We recommend that planned cash register registrations are carried out at a later date, if possible.

RetailForce Fiscal Middleware – New Version 1.3.0

The latest version 1.3.0 of our Fiscal Middleware is now available for download at https://retailforce.cloud/downloads/.

This version includes releases for the countries:

  • Bulgaria and
  • Denmark.

Beta versions for:

  • France,
  • Poland, and
  • Sweden are also included in v1.3.0.

Austria

In addition to the above-mentioned country-extensions, version 1.3.0 is dominated by the Austrian Cash Register Security Ordinance (RKSV). A number of additions and improvements have been implemented, also with regard to the migration from other Fiscal Middleware systems to RetailForce.

Furthermore, the data collection log (“Datenerfassungsprotokoll”) according to §7 RKSV (“DEP7”) can now be checked for validity with the ASIT check tool via the RetailForce Cloud. Descriptions and details will follow in solution articles on our Solution Centre.

Technical Event Log

Starting with version 1.2.12, technical events at the checkout, which are required, for example, for the implementation of the NF525 requirements of Infocert, within the framework of the French “Anti-VAT Fraud Law”, or the law on “Digital Sales Registration Systems” in Denmark, can be transmitted to the RetailForce Middleware.

As of this version, some of these events are now automatically written to the technical event log (audit log) by the Fiscal Client. You can find more information on this in the linked article in our Solution Centre.

As usual, all details on changes, additions and extensions of version 1.3.0 are available in the release notes on our website.

Important Release 1.2.13

Attention: in order to continue to meet the legal requirements of the KassenSichV, all systems in Germany must be updated to the current release version 1.2.13 by 31 June 2022! The new version is available in the downloads section of the RetailForce website.

The v 1.2.13 of the Fiscal Client contains changes resulting from the DSFinV-K 2.3 – mandatory from 1 July 2022. Furthermore, the Swissbit Fiskal Cloud Connector version 4.0.1 is supported from this release. Since the certification of Swissbit’s FCC 3 is expiring, all systems using the Swissbit Cloud TSE must be updated to FCC version 4 by 31 July 2022 at the latest!

Extensions and features

Release Auditlog – with this release the so-called “Technical Event Log” is published and can now be used productively. In the countries Denmark and France, the technical event log is part of the country-specific fiscal requirements.

Swissbit Fiscal Cloud Connector 4.0.1 supported – As of this release, the Swissbit FCC is supported in the latest, certified version 4.0.1. As mentioned in the introduction, the upgrade to the new FCC version must be made by the end of July this year at the latest, as the certification of the old version 3.x is expiring.

Implementation DSFinV-K 2.3 – all changes in the DSFinV-K version 2.3, which was published on 21 April 2022, are included in the new release. The DSFinV-K is mandatory as of 1 July 2022. See also the BMF letter dated 21 April. Details on the changes can be found in the linked news article on our website.

Standard Test Client GER – The Standard Test Client, which is installed with the fiscal service, now connects to the fiskaly Test Cloud TSE again. This function was deactivated during the migration to fiskaly Cloud TSE 2.0 and is now available again.

Denmark Release Candidate – furthermore, the Fiskal Client Version 1.2.13 contains the Release Candidate for Denmark. With the next version (1.3.0), the Danish country implementation will be officially published.

Changes TrustedFiscalModule

BusinessTransactionType.Discount – from now on discounts have to be sent as part of the position item and not as a separate discount item.

Bulgaria – new fiscal document types have been added for the Bulgaria implementation. Details can be found in the release notes.

Changes TrustesFiscalService

Fiscal Country properties – country-specific information regarding fiscalisation (supported business cases, documents, payment types as well as fiscal documents) can now be queried via the Fiscal Client.

Furthermore, due to the upcoming release of the country extensions for Bulgaria, Denmark and France, the test unit coverage has been greatly increased.

Details on the enhancements and changes can be found, as usual, in the release notes of the current version of the Fiscal Client in the downloads section of our website.

FinanzOnline-operations disrupted

We have just received notification of planned extensive maintenance work at the Austrian Federal Computing Centre. On Saturday, 21.05.2022, in the time between 07:00 and 22:00, the FinanzOnline service, among others, will not be available. Even outside this time window, there may be disruptions in the operation of FinanzOnline between Sat. 21.05, 0:00 hrs and Sun. 22.05.2022, 23:00 hrs.

We recommend that you plan accordingly for this when planning any commissioning of cash registers. During this time, FinanzOnline cannot process any notifications. The RetailForce system will forward any FinanzOnline-notifications received during the above-mentioned period as soon as possible.

EuroCIS 2022

The EuroCIS trade fair will soon open its doors again this year – somewhat later than usual. Since the 2021 fair did not take place for well-known reasons, we will be represented in Düsseldorf for the first time from 31 May – 2 June.

We are looking forward to welcoming you in person at our booth in Hall 9 – Stand D21 / D22.

Together with our partners, we are happy to be at your disposal for all topics relating to

  • international fiscalisation,
  • secure archiving of data and
  • digital receipts

.

Save the date!

We would be happy to make an appointment in advance. Simply send us an email to: office (at) retailforce.cloud or use the contact form.

We look forward to your visit

Your RetailForce Team

DSFinV-K new version valid from 1 July 2022

Last week, the German Federal Ministry of Finance announced the publication of a new version of the so-called “Digital Interface of the Tax Administration for Cash Register Systems (DSFinV-K)”. The specifications were published on the website of the Federal Central Tax Office. The current version, 2.3, must be used from 1st of July 2022.

RetailForce integrates the changes resulting from the new version into the Fiscal Middleware.

Changes

The majority of the changes are textual additions and clarifications, but a few more serious changes have also been fixed.

One of these significant changes to the DSFinV-K concerns the cash register number (KASSE_SERIENNR). Quote:

“For technical reasons, neither slashes (“/”) nor underscores (“_”) may be used in the cash register serial number.” [translated from the original German text]

DSFinV-K, annex E Nr. 3, p. 69.

In the RetailForce system, the cash register number is used for initialising the Fiscal Client and is entered in the “Terminal number” field in the Cloud Portal when a new terminal (= cash register) is created. We recommend not using slashes (“/”) or underscores (“_”) when assigning “Store number” (creation of a new store) and “Terminal number” (only numbers and letters – without separators).

Compared to the previous version, the payment method “rechargable value card” (not to confuse with credit cards!) has been described in much more detail. The explanation is based on the EU Directive 2015/2366 on payment services in the internal market. Important: These value cards are mere means of payment and are considered as such if they can be exchanged back for the amount originally paid (or the amount not yet used) at any time and without preconditions. They are therefore not equivalent to single-purpose vouchers.

Furthermore, a small but decisive textual adjustment was made to the receipt reference. The short description of the reference date (DSFinV-K field: REF_DATUM) was changed from: (v2.2) “Timestamp of the transaction being referenced” to: (v2.3) “Timestamp of the cash closure being referenced”.

In view of the changes to the KassenSichV, which were passed by the Federal Council last summer (see our article from July 2021), the section “Definition of the QR code for machine-verifiable cash receipts” was also revised. An edge length of at least 3 cm is prescribed for the display of the QR code. Further information on the QR code can also be found in our Solution Centre. An edge length of at least 3 cm is prescribed for the display of the QR code. Further information on the QR code can also be found in our Solution Centre.

From today’s perspective, all changes resulting from the new version of the DSFinV-K can be implemented by RetailForce without adapting the integration. Should there be any changes to this assessment, we will inform you in good time. The changes will be made available via a new version of the Fiscal Client, which is expected to be published by us at the beginning of the second half of May.

Extensive maintenance work BRZ

The Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance would like to inform you about upcoming extensive maintenance work at the Federal Computing Centre (BRZ). Due to maintenance work on the network, server and databases, FinanzOnline will only be available to a limited extent on Saturday 23 April from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday 24 April 2022 and will not be available at all between 5 p.m. and 8.30 p.m. thereafter. The FinanzOnline team asks for your understanding.

Please plan any commissioning of cash registers accordingly, as no FinanzOnline messages can be processed by the BRZ during this time. The RetailForce system will forward any FinanzOnline-notifications received during the above-mentioned period as soon as possible.

New version – Fiscal Client 1.2.12

In the download area of the RetailForce website you will find the latest version of our Fiscal Client (https://www.retailforce.cloud/downloads/).
The current release 1.2.12 includes functions for the countries Denmark and Bulgaria and is probably the last beta version for the two fiscal countries.
In addition to the country integrations, several improvements have been incorporated to increase the performance of the Fiscal Client – mainly for high-load systems.

RetailForce Cloud

Some changes that have been made to the RetailForce Cloud:

  • Simultaneously with the release of the new client version, configuration objects for Denmark and Bulgaria can now be created in the Cloud Portal.
  • The export of DSFinV-K files in CSV format is now much faster.
  • An additional caption field has been added to the customer entities “Organisation” and “Company” in order to be able to enter brand names of companies.
    We recommend filling the field “Caption 1” with the official company name and “Caption 2” with the brand name.

An overview of all enhancements, improvements and bug fixes can be found in the release notes at https://www.retailforce.cloud/downloads/Version%201.2.12/ReleaseNotes1.2.12.md.