Public authorities, hospitals, universities and municipal utilities buy differently from an industrial customer. The framework comes from procurement law, the call-off runs through a catalogue, and the invoice goes to a portal in a structured format. Anyone who wants to supply this group needs three things in the shop: well-maintained line data, a dependable call-off channel and an invoice record that carries the mandatory fields required by German federal bodies. This article separates the three levels and shows which part of it is a job for the shop at all.
Key takeaways
- New EU thresholds apply from 1 January 2026: 140,000 euros for supply and service contracts of central government authorities, 216,000 euros for supply and service contracts of sub-central contracting authorities and 5,404,000 euros for public works contracts (Article 4 of Directive 2014/24/EU as amended by Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2152).
- German procurement statistics record 199,334 award procedures for 2024 with a contract volume of 135.2 bn euros (Federal Statistical Office) - public buying is a sales channel in its own right for wholesale.
- Tenders are submitted in text form using electronic means (section 53(1) VgV), that is via the platform of the contracting authority. The shop only carries the call-off after the award.
- A framework agreement runs for four years at most (section 21(6) VgV). Line numbers, price validity and delivery commitments have to stay stable in the catalogue for that long.
- An electronic invoice to a federal body needs at least a routing identification number, bank details, payment terms and an e-mail address of the invoicing party (section 5(1) ERechV).
Why public buying is a channel of its own
Public procurement follows a budget rhythm, not a sales plan. What an authority does not call off in one year is not automatically available again in the next. Call-offs from running framework contracts therefore tend to cluster towards the end of the year, and precisely in the product groups that technical wholesale, plumbing and electrical supply, laboratory and medical technology and workplace equipment already carry. For a supplier that means the channel used for call-offs has to be finished in the fourth quarter, not under construction. A catalogue that is only complete in December misses the call-offs the framework contract was won for.
The customer base is broader than the word authority suggests. Municipal enterprises, utilities, publicly owned hospitals, universities, fire services and state-owned operations all buy under the same rules. What connects them is the order of events: first an award procedure, then a contract, then the individual call-off. The shop sits at the third point of that chain, and this is exactly where it is decided whether a framework contract that has been won is actually used. What such a call-off from a framework contract looks like technically depends on whether the purchasing office buys in the shop itself or arrives from its own procurement portal.
Three levels that should not be mixed
Thresholds for 2026 and 2027: which rule applies
Whether a contract has to be tendered under European procurement law depends on the estimated contract value excluding VAT. German competition law does not name a fixed figure but refers dynamically to the EU directive: the threshold for contracting authorities follows from Article 4 of Directive 2014/24/EU as amended, and the resulting value for central government authorities is to be applied by the Federal Chancellery and the federal ministries (section 106(2) no. 1 GWB). The actual amounts are therefore not in German law but in the current delegated regulation of the Commission - anyone copying them from an older leaflet is working with outdated figures.
- 5,404,000 euros for public works contracts, previously 5,538,000 euros (Article 4(a) of Directive 2014/24/EU as amended by Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2152).
- 140,000 euros for public supply and service contracts awarded by central government authorities, previously 143,000 euros (Article 4(b) of Directive 2014/24/EU as amended by Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2152).
- 216,000 euros for public supply and service contracts awarded by sub-central contracting authorities - all contracting authorities which are not central government authorities - previously 221,000 euros (Article 4(c) of Directive 2014/24/EU as amended by Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2152).
- Below these values EU procurement law does not apply; national budget and below-threshold rules do. The contract does not disappear, it is simply awarded under different rules - often faster and with fewer formalities.
What is notable about this round is the direction: the amounts have fallen compared with the previous period rather than risen. For 2026 and 2027 they apply from 1 January 2026. The regulation states the cycle explicitly.
In accordance with Article 6(1) of Directive 2014/24/EU, the Commission revises the thresholds every two years with effect from 1 January.
For sales this is not a legal footnote but a planning figure. A product package that has so far stayed just below the threshold can now sit above it because the value has fallen - without anything in the offer having changed. That changes the type of procedure, the deadlines and the effort on both sides. Anyone who wants to see internally who may release which contract values will find the mechanics in approval workflows and budget limits.
What the catalogue notices about thresholds
How large public buying actually is
Since the procurement law reform there has been official statistics on this, and the order of magnitude surprises many sales teams. For the 2024 reporting year it shows 199,334 award procedures (Federal Statistical Office) with a contract volume of 135.2 bn euros (Federal Statistical Office); 11,524 reporting bodies are registered (Federal Statistical Office, count up to 31 December 2024). This is not a niche at the edge of commercial business but a sales channel with its own procedural rules, its own deadlines and its own documentation duties.
The data basis is young. Only since October 2020 have German procurement statistics recorded the basic data on public contracts across the board for the first time (Federal Statistical Office); before that, federal, state and municipal bodies had no valid data basis. Reporting is not voluntary.
The procurement statistics regulation obliges all contracting authorities to transmit certain data on procurement operations to the Federal Statistical Office, mandated by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE).
Revenue comes from the call-off, not from the tender
Electronic tendering: what the shop does not do
Above the thresholds, electronic communication in the procedure is the rule. Companies submit their expressions of interest, confirmations of interest, requests to participate and tenders in text form under section 126b of the German Civil Code using electronic means (section 53(1) VgV). Those electronic means are provided by the contracting authority; the procurement regulation allows the postal route only in named cases, for instance where scale models have to be submitted at the same time. The shop is not involved at this point, and that is a relief: what is missing here does not have to be built.
Platform of the contracting authority
Carries the notice, the procurement documents, bidder questions and the submission of requests to participate and tenders. Access and deadlines are set by the authority. From a supplier point of view this is an external system that needs attention but is not integrated.
ERP system
Holds item master data, conditions, customer groups and stock. For a framework contract a dedicated price list with a validity period is usually created there, so that the call-off does not depend on the general list price.
Shop as call-off channel
Shows the contractually agreed assortment with contract prices, line numbers and delivery times. It checks entitlement and budget, captures order number and supplier number and writes the call-off into the ERP system.
Federal invoice portal
Receives the electronic invoice and checks it in an automation-supported way for formal correctness; a formally incorrect electronic invoice is rejected in an automation-supported way (section 4(3) ERechV). The invoicing party is notified of acceptance and rejection.
In practice these four systems talk to each other very little, and that is rarely a technical problem. It is an assignment problem: the same delivery carries a different number in every system, and at every system boundary one of them is lost. The overview below sorts out who leads in which step and which identifier has to travel along.
| Step | System in charge | Contribution of the shop | Identifier that has to travel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notice and tender | Platform of the contracting authority | none | Procedure number |
| Award and framework contract | ERP system | create contract price list | Contract number and term |
| Provide catalogue | Shop | assortment, prices, delivery time | Line number of the authority |
| Trigger call-off | Procurement system of the authority or shop | cart, entitlement, approval | Order number and supplier number |
| Delivery and document | ERP system | status feedback | Delivery note number |
| Invoice | Federal invoice portal | create and transmit the record | Routing identification number |
Catalogue work for purchasing offices
A catalogue for public buying differs less in the assortment than in how binding the information is. A purchasing office has to justify every call-off to its own invoice verification, and for that it needs fields that commercial trade often treats as accessories. If they are missing, the transaction moves into manual handling - and a manually handled call-off is the start of a supplier change.
- Line number of the contracting authority: the catalogue carries not only your own item number but also the number from the bill of quantities. Without that link, every call-off falls into manual checking.
- Contract price with validity and term: net, excluding VAT, with the date from which it applies and the date up to which it applies.
- Description along the tender: the wording of the bill of quantities beats the marketing description. Deviations in wording produce queries, not orders.
- Delivery time as a commitment, not an estimate: what is in the contract belongs on the line item - calculated conservatively rather than optimistically.
- Origin and commodity code: for technical goods the customs tariff number belongs on the line item; how it is maintained is covered in customs codes and origin in the B2B shop.
- Documents on the line item: data sheet, declaration of conformity and instructions belong linked; which requirements are coming for machinery is covered in the article on digital instructions.
Price changes during a running framework contract
Technically this means a catalogue line item for public buying carries more fields than an ordinary shop article. The excerpt below shows what a line item can look like that carries both the call-off and the later invoice.
{
"item": "WZ-4412-020",
"authority_line": "LV-03.140",
"contract": {
"number": "RV-2026-0147",
"lot": "3",
"term_until": "2029-11-30"
},
"price": {
"net": 148.50,
"currency": "EUR",
"unit": "piece",
"valid_from": "2026-01-01",
"valid_until": "2026-12-31"
},
"lead_time_working_days": 5,
"commodity_code": "84818059",
"documents": [
"data-sheet.pdf",
"declaration-of-conformity.pdf"
],
"invoice": {
"routing_id": "required",
"order_number": "required",
"supplier_number": "required"
}
}The values are schematic. What matters is the structure: contract reference, price validity and the fields expected later on the invoice all hang on the same line item - not on three separate lists that tend to drift apart over a four-year contract term.
Framework agreement and call-off: the channel that carries
The standard case in public buying of consumables, spare parts and workplace equipment is the framework agreement. It sets terms without binding the volume conclusively: the envisaged contract volume is to be determined and published as precisely as possible but does not have to be fixed conclusively (section 21(1) VgV). Its term may be four years at most, unless there is a special case justified by the subject matter of the framework agreement (section 21(6) VgV). For catalogue work this is the real planning horizon.
- One contract partner: individual contracts are awarded in accordance with the terms of the framework agreement. For the shop this is the simplest case - catalogue, contract price, call-off.
- Several contract partners, all terms fixed: individual contracts without a new award procedure, provided the objective conditions for selecting the companies are also set out in the framework agreement. The catalogue then has to make visible why this supplier is chosen for this call-off.
- Several contract partners, terms open: a new award procedure between the parties to the framework agreement. Tenders are to be submitted in text form and may not be opened before the submission deadline expires (section 21(5) VgV) - which again happens outside the shop.
If the purchasing office arrives from its own procurement system, the catalogue is not browsed in the shop but called from there. The cart then travels back into the system of the authority, where approval and ordering take place - the shop only sees the order again as an incoming sales order. How that handover works technically is covered in punchout and OCI catalogues in B2B; how such access is set up is described on our page on punchout and OCI.
The electronic invoice to federal bodies
At the end of the chain sits the invoice, and this is where German federal rules are strictest. Invoicing parties have to issue and transmit invoices to invoice recipients in electronic form (section 3(1) ERechV); recipients have to receive them electronically using an administrative portal (section 3(2) ERechV). For issuing, the XRechnung data exchange standard in its current version is to be used in principle; another standard only if it meets the requirements of the European standard on electronic invoicing (section 4(1) ERechV). One of the few exceptions concerns small amounts: the obligation does not apply to invoices issued after fulfilling a direct award up to an amount of 1,000 euros (section 3(3) no. 1 ERechV).
In addition to the VAT components of an invoice, the electronic invoice has to contain at least the following details: 1. a routing identification number, 2. the bank details, 3. the payment terms and 4. the De-Mail address or an e-mail address of the invoicing party.
On top of that come two fields that accounting does not supply but the ordering process does: supplier number and order number have to be stated if they were already transmitted to the invoicing party when the order was placed (section 5(2) ERechV). This is exactly why capturing these fields belongs in the call-off and not in invoicing - later they can only be obtained by asking. The routing identification number itself is issued by the contracting authority; it appears in the procurement documents or in the order and addresses the receiving body. How this data flow between shop, ERP system and portal is set up is covered in the article on the e-invoicing mandate in the B2B shop; the scope of work is described on our page on e-invoicing.
Data flow between shop, ERP system and portal
A frequent cause of rejected invoices in public business is not a format error but a missing identifier. A formally incorrect electronic invoice is rejected in an automation-supported way (section 4(3) ERechV) - the transaction sits still until someone looks for the cause, and the payment period does not start during that time. The place to prevent this is upstream: where the call-off is created. Which integrations are needed for that depends on the ERP system, not on the shop.
- Store the routing identification number per invoice recipient in the customer master data instead of asking for it with every order.
- Keep order number and supplier number as mandatory fields in the call-off as soon as the authority has transmitted them with the order.
- Pass contract number and line number through from the call-off into the invoice line, so that invoice verification can establish the reference without a query.
- Record the price validity per line item, so it stays provable which contract price applied at the time of the call-off.
- Write rejections from the portal back into the ERP system; a rejection that only arrives as an e-mail tends to be overlooked.
What a shop for public sector buyers typically needs
For a B2B shop, public buying is not a special case in the assortment but a special case in data management. The articles are mostly the same as in commercial business; what differs are the fields that have to travel along and the order in which they are created. Anyone who separates the contract level cleanly from the call-off level and links both through the same line number has done the larger part of the work - the rest almost follows from it.
In concrete terms: one price list per framework contract in the ERP system, a catalogue in the shop that shows exactly that list and nothing beside it, mandatory fields at the call-off for order and supplier number, and an invoice record that fully carries the details required under section 5 ERechV. This can be built on the Shopware Community Edition; we describe the implementation under Shopware development and, for connecting the ERP system, under integrations.
Sources and legal bases
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