“Has to go through this year” – from October onwards, many enquiries from companies, property managers, medical practices and public bodies start with that sentence. Behind it there is rarely haste, but planning that is tied to the calendar year: for the German federal administration the budget year is the calendar year, and anyone who determines profit on a cash basis (Einnahmenüberschussrechnung) deducts expenses in the year in which they pay them. For businesses that supply other organisations this is a season you can plan for – provided the website answers a buyer's questions before they pick up the phone. By when does the order have to arrive so that delivery or service still happens this year? What does the package cost, and can it be approved without a query? Where does the purchase order number go? This article explains where the December pressure comes from, where it ends, and how a section for business customers, a pricing table with fixed prices and a form with order details catch these orders. Christmas trade with private customers is covered in a separate article on year-end business.
Where the December pressure comes from
For the federal administration the law is clear. “The accounting year (budget year) is the calendar year”, says Section 4 of the Federal Budget Code (BHO), adding that the Federal Ministry of Finance may determine otherwise for individual areas. Section 45(1) BHO builds on this: expenditure may only be made for the purpose stated in the budget plan and “only until the end of the budget year”. Anyone in a federal authority who is responsible for a budget for training, equipment or services therefore plans so that the service is delivered and paid for within the current year. That planning produces the enquiries that arrive in October and November with the words “still this year”.
It does not follow that every unspent euro is lost at the turn of the year. Section 45(2) BHO allows carry-over balances (Ausgabereste) to be formed for transferable expenditure, which remain available for their purpose “until the end of the second budget year following the appropriation”. According to Section 19 BHO, expenditure on investment is among the items that are transferable. Using such balances, however, requires the consent of the Federal Ministry of Finance (Section 45(3) BHO) – an additional administrative step that nobody needs who completes the project within the current year. The accurate sentence is therefore not “the money expires” but “many bodies plan around year end”. Anyone who advertises with the first sentence tells a buyer something about their own budget that the buyer knows better.
The federal states and municipalities have budget rules of their own. The Budgetary Principles Act (HGrG) sets their framework: “The Federation and the Länder are obliged to regulate their budget law in accordance with these principles”, says Section 1 HGrG, and Section 4 HGrG likewise makes the calendar year the budget year, again with room for different rules in individual areas. The details on carry-over balances, transferability and internal deadlines, however, sit in the law of each state and in municipal budget law, and they differ. Anyone supplying a state authority, a university or a city administration should therefore not advertise a deadline derived from federal law, but ask by when that body needs delivery and invoice. In companies the budget depends on their own annual planning; whatever is not committed by the year-end close is up for discussion again in the new plan.
The sentence that holds
Business customers buy in several steps
A buyer, a property manager or the head of a practice does not buy for themselves but for an organisation.
Between the first look at the website and the order there are usually several steps: obtain a quote, have it approved internally, create a purchase order number, accept the work and match the invoice to the right address and the right number. Every question the website leaves open costs time in that chain – in December, when holidays and the year-end close coincide, often more than usual. Anyone who knows the chain builds the page so that every step is possible without a query. A section for business customers therefore answers these points above all:
- A cut-off date by which an order must arrive so that delivery or service still happens in the current year – as a date, not as “in good time”
- Packages with a fixed price, a clearly defined scope and a note on whether prices are net or gross
- How long the quote is valid and the date of the price list, so that approval does not fail on an outdated amount
- The delivery or service date the business can realistically meet, separated into goods and services
- An ordering route that also takes the company name, purchase order or reference number and billing address
- A contact person with a deputy for the period between Christmas and New Year
- The form of the invoice: as a PDF, as an electronic invoice or on paper, depending on what the business offers
The permanent route for business customers – a switch on the home page, proof of competence, a form with a branch – is described in the article Private and business customers on one website. This is about the addition for the fourth quarter: a section that takes up the year-end occasion, works with a cut-off date and disappears again after the turn of the year or is switched to the first quarter. It is best placed where business customers land anyway: on the page for business customers or directly above the pricing table.
The question that comes first
Tax: why the delivery date counts
With business customers there is a second reason for December: tax.
Anyone who determines profit on a cash basis (Einnahmenüberschussrechnung), such as sole traders, practices and freelancers who are not obliged to keep balance sheets, follows the outflow principle. “Expenses are to be deducted for the calendar year in which they were paid”, says Section 11(2) EStG, the German Income Tax Act. A service paid for in December therefore reduces that year's profit. For regularly recurring expenses such as maintenance fees there is a special rule around the turn of the year (Section 11(2) sentence 2 in conjunction with Section 11(1) sentence 2 EStG): under certain conditions they count in the year to which they economically belong. For companies that keep balance sheets the outflow principle does not apply in the same way; under Section 11(2) EStG the rules on determining profit remain unaffected.
For goods and equipment that stay in the business, what counts is not the payment but the acquisition. “The year of acquisition is the year of delivery”, provides Section 9a of the Income Tax Implementing Ordinance (EStDV). A device ordered and invoiced in December but delivered in January is therefore acquired in the new year – for goods the delivery date counts, not the invoice date. For the immediate deduction of low-value assets, Section 6(2) EStG sets the limit: the acquisition costs, reduced by any input VAT contained in them, must not exceed 800 euros (Section 6(2) EStG) for the individual asset. More expensive fixed assets are depreciated, and in the year of acquisition the depreciation amount is reduced under Section 7(1) EStG “by one twelfth for each full month preceding the month of acquisition or production”. Anyone who delivers such a device in December therefore gives the customer only one twelfth of the annual straight-line depreciation under Section 7(1) EStG in the year of acquisition.
Scroll table sideways
| Situation at the customer | What counts under the law | What your website states |
|---|---|---|
| Service, customer with cash-basis accounting | Calendar year of payment, Section 11(2) EStG | Service date and payment terms |
| Device up to 800 euros net of input VAT | Immediate deduction possible in the year of acquisition, Section 6(2) EStG | Net price per device and delivery date |
| Fixed asset above 800 euros net of input VAT | Depreciation, pro rata by month in the year of acquisition, Section 7(1) EStG | Delivery date, not just the invoice date |
| Goods in general | Year of delivery is the year of acquisition, Section 9a EStDV | Last order date for delivery in the current year |
| Company that keeps balance sheets | Rules on determining profit, the outflow principle does not apply in the same way | Service period on quote and invoice |
| Public body | Budget law, for the Federation Section 45 BHO | The question of when delivery and invoice must be in place |
The table explains why customers press – it is not tax advice. Whether a purchase in December pays off for a particular customer depends on how they determine profit, on their input VAT deduction and on their other plans; the customer clarifies that with their own tax adviser. How a business classifies the costs of its own website is described in the article Website costs and tax: expense or asset. This is about something else: the purchasing motives of the customers and which details on the page they need for their decision.
No tax promises on the offer page
A real cut-off date on the page
The most important sentence in the section for business customers is a date: “Delivery or service still in 2026 for orders placed by …”. That date is not a marketing device but the result of counting backwards from your own processes.
It has to hold – anyone who names the cut-off date and then delivers in January after all risks losing the customer for next year. The calculation starts with the last working day before the holidays and subtracts what lies between order and delivery: procurement from your own supplier, scheduling, execution, acceptance and invoicing. Add a buffer for approval at the customer, which takes longer in December than in spring.
Last working day before the holidays [date from the company calendar]
− Acceptance and invoicing [days from experience]
− Execution or delivery [days per service description]
− Procurement from your own supplier [lead time per supplier]
− Approval at the customer [buffer, generous in December]
= Order cut-off on the website [a date that holds]
After the cut-off:
Expiry text instead of a counter, note on free dates in the new yearFor the display, XICflow offers the countdown block from the group blocks for conversion and CTA. It takes a heading, a subtitle, the target date and an expiry text – according to the documentation the “text shown instead of the counter once the date has passed”. That expiry text is what separates a real deadline from a marketing trick, because a countdown claims a real deadline. The documentation states the rule without detours:
Deadlines have to be genuine; a countdown that keeps restarting is unlawful advertising.
A good expiry text says what applies from now on: “We no longer accept orders for delivery this year. We are happy to schedule dates from January onwards now.” That keeps the page correct after the cut-off, even if nobody touches it over the holidays. By January at the latest, the section should be revised or removed; statements with an expiry date belong on the list described in the article Declutter your website copy. Anyone who also names the cut-off date in the quote and in the confirmation of receipt has the same statement everywhere and has less to explain later.
Fixed-price packages a buyer can approve
A remaining budget is a fixed amount. Anyone who needs a quote that fits that amount looks on the website for packages with a fixed price – not for “price on request”.
The pricing table in the builder is made for this; the documentation describes it as “packages or plans side by side; this is where prices belong”. The pricing table also produces machine-readable price statements, so only prices that really apply belong there. A package that a buyer can approve without a query states scope, price, date and conditions so completely that internal approval can be based on the page. Six details carry that approval:
Scope in bullet points
What is included and what is not: number of devices or appointments, travel, materials, instruction. A package whose limits are visible usually does not need to be renegotiated after the order.
Price with price date
The fixed net price, and the gross price where needed, with the date from which it applies. For business customers the net price is the figure used for internal calculation.
Date before year end
Whether the package can still be delivered or performed in the current year, up to which order date, and what applies after that date.
Validity of the quote
How long the price applies. In larger organisations an approval needs several signatures; a quote that expires in the meantime starts all over again.
Term for contracts
For maintenance or service contracts the minimum term sits directly next to the price, not in a footnote. Monthly prices without a term lead to queries.
Ordering route with a number
A button that leads to the form with the package preselected, so that purchase order number and billing address come along straight away.
Not every service fits into a package. Where the price depends on area, quantity or effort, a price estimator that qualifies enquiries helps. For year end it is still worth formulating a few standard services as fixed prices: a maintenance visit, a training session, a setup package or a block of hours. Anyone offering vouchers to companies at year end, for example as a gift for customers or staff, will find the validity and redemption rules in the article Selling gift vouchers through your website.
Price and term belong together
A form for orders with a number
The general contact form asks for name, email and message.
For an order from a remaining budget that is not enough: the invoice later has to be matched to the right order, and that needs the company name, purchase order or reference number and billing address. With the “Form” block you set the label and field type yourself; the choices include single-line text, number, dropdown and multi-line text. A form can hold up to 40 custom fields (XICflow documentation); a message is truncated after 5,000 characters, a single custom field after 2,000. An order form needs far fewer fields, because every additional mandatory field is one more hurdle. This order works well as a framework:
1 Company mandatory
2 Contact person mandatory, with job title
3 Email mandatory
4 Phone optional, for queries
5 Purchase order or reference optional, if already assigned
6 Billing address mandatory, multi-line
7 Package dropdown, preselected
8 Preferred date dropdown: still in 2026 /
Q1 2027 / flexible
9 Place of delivery or service if different
10 Message optionalThe “Preferred date” dropdown is the most important field of the season. It separates the enquiries that must be served by the cut-off from those that may move into the new year, and it replaces the query that would otherwise be the first reply. “Flexible” is not a fallback option: some bodies mainly want to award the order and can leave the date open. The purchase order number stays optional, because at the customer it is often only created after the quote has been approved. What else makes a good form – short paths, understandable error messages, spam protection without hurdles – is described in the article Getting contact forms right. After submitting, the customer should learn four things:
- A confirmation of receipt that repeats the package and the chosen preferred date
- The next step: who will get in touch and how the written quote will arrive
- A note that a purchase order number can also be supplied later
- A contact person for queries, with a deputy for the period between Christmas and New Year
Enquiries that do not sit idle over the holidays
Year-end enquiries often coincide with the time when the first holidays begin in your own business. In the requests and team area every submission arrives with name, status, date and message.
The list can be filtered with the buttons “All”, “New”, “Read” and “Archived” and loads the 500 most recent submissions (XICflow documentation); older ones are available through the CSV export. So that nobody has to keep checking, XICflow forwards every new request to the notification address you have stored. For the season it is worth entering a shared mailbox there that is also read during holidays, rather than the address of a single person. The roles in the team determine who may do what:
Scroll table sideways
| Role | What it may do | Use from mid-December to the turn of the year |
|---|---|---|
| Owner | Everything, including plan and billing | Decides who deputises and stays reachable for approvals |
| Administrator | Manage content and team, invite, change roles | Adds a deputy to the team or adjusts roles before the holidays |
| Editor | Handle requests, set status, edit pages | Answers requests, sets the status and adjusts the section after the cut-off |
| Viewer | View and export, change nothing | Keeps an overview, for example accounting when matching purchase order numbers |
Who gets which role depends on the business; according to the documentation every member has exactly one role. What matters is that the deputy is set up before the holidays, not afterwards. How quickly a reply should follow and which text modules work is covered in the article Responding to enquiries: response times that win jobs. By default, requests are kept for 180 days (XICflow documentation) and are then deleted automatically; anyone who needs order details for longer saves them in their own records in good time via the CSV export.
The deputy rule
Public bodies: budget law instead of tax
For authorities, universities and municipal institutions income tax plays no role, budget law all the more.
Besides the budget, procurement law determines how a body buys; what a contracting authority looks up on the website before awarding a contract is described in the article Public sector contracts: what buyers check. At year end there is a practical point on top: public customers need not only the service but also the invoice by a certain day, so that payment can still be made within the budget year. That day is not set in any federal law but in the body's internal planning – which is why it belongs in the form as a question and not on the page as a claim. A public body should find on the website:
- The full company name with address, exactly as it appears on quote and invoice
- A service description that can be copied into an order without rewording
- Information on invoicing, for example whether electronic invoices are possible
- The delivery or service date and the order cut-off for the current year
- A contact person who can also answer technical questions about the quote
If the business delivers to several locations or travels to its customers, a clear presentation of the service area helps, as described in the article Service area page instead of city pages. A body can then see at once whether its location is served, without having to send an enquiry first.
The schedule up to mid-December
- October: count back the cut-off date from your own processes and agree it with the team
- October: formulate a few fixed-price packages, each with scope, price date, delivery date and validity
- Early November: publish the section for business customers with countdown and expiry text
- Early November: set up the quote form with company, purchase order number, billing address and preferred date
- Mid-November: check the notification address, add a deputy to the team, set the roles
- After the cut-off: check the expiry text, schedule enquiries with a preferred date in the new year
- In January: remove the section or switch it to the first quarter, save order details via export
Anyone who runs the website with XICflow needs no rebuild for any of this: countdown, pricing table and form are blocks that can be placed in an existing section, and the requests arrive in the same area as all others. Which features are included is shown in the overview of features, the plans are listed under pricing and plans. Anyone starting only in November still follows the same order: first the cut-off date, then the packages, then the form. Without a cut-off date the whole section has no occasion.
What counts in the end