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Product Handbook

Everything you need to know about HandwerkerBonus

Last updated: June 2026|Version 0.1.0

What is HandwerkerBonus?

HandwerkerBonus is a web application that helps German households maximise their tax deduction under §35a EStG (Einkommensteuergesetz). Every year, households in Germany can claim up to €1,200 in tax savings from craftsman and household-related services, but most people leave this money on the table because the process is confusing and time-consuming.

HandwerkerBonus solves this by letting you simply upload your craftsman invoice (PDF, JPG or PNG). Our AI-powered OCR extracts labour costs, materials and payment details, runs eight formal compliance checks (K-01 through K-08), and calculates your exact §35a bonus, all in under 60 seconds.

The result is an ELSTER-ready summary you can paste directly into your German tax return. No accounting degree required.

How it works

1. Create your account

Sign up with your email address. You can use a password or receive a magic link. No credit card is required for the free tier.

2. Upload an invoice

Drag and drop your craftsman invoice or take a photo with your phone. We accept PDF, JPG and PNG files up to 10 MB.

3. Automatic verification

Our OCR engine extracts all relevant data points: labour costs, materials, travel costs, machine costs. Each line item gets a confidence score. Items below 70% confidence are flagged for manual review.

4. Formal compliance check

Eight checks run automatically against BMF (Federal Ministry of Finance) requirements: issuer address, recipient address, invoice date, invoice number, tax number, service description, separate labour costs, and bank transfer payment.

5. Bonus calculation

The §35a bonus is calculated deterministically: 20% of deductible costs (labour, travel, machine), capped at €1,200 per year. Material costs are never deductible. This calculation is pure math, never AI.

6. Export for ELSTER

Download an ELSTER-ready PDF summary with all verified invoices for the tax year. Enter the figures directly into your ELSTER household services form.

Features

AI-powered OCR

Intelligent text recognition separates labour from materials automatically. Processed on EU servers in Frankfurt.

8-point formal check

Every invoice is verified against §14 UStG requirements. Each check shows a clear pass or fail indicator.

§35a bonus calculator

Deterministic calculation of your tax bonus: 20% of deductible costs, capped at €1,200 annually. Pure TypeScript, never an AI guess.

ELSTER-ready export

Generate a clean PDF summary for each tax year with all verified amounts ready for your ELSTER filing.

Multi-year overview

Track your bonus across multiple tax years. See trends, compare seasons and never miss a deadline.

Confidence scoring

Every OCR-extracted line item shows a confidence score. Items below 70% are flagged with a yellow review badge so you always know what needs a second look.

Light and dark mode

The app supports both light and dark themes. Light mode uses a warm paper aesthetic for trust. Switch any time via the theme toggle.

Bilingual (DE + EN)

The entire app is available in German and English. Switch languages at any time using the language selector in the header or settings.

Referral programme

Invite friends with your personal code and earn free Pro months for every signup.

Dashboard

Your dashboard shows a season overview with three KPI tiles: estimated §35a bonus, total deductible labour, and number of verified invoices. A recent activity feed lists your latest uploads.

Smart reminders show upcoming tax deadlines and how much of the annual €1,200 cap you have used. The multi-year trend chart visualises your bonus history over previous tax years.

Invoice management

The invoices page lists all your uploaded receipts with columns for filename, tax year, status, amount and upload date. Use the search bar to filter by filename or the status filter to narrow results.

Click any invoice to open the detail view, which has two panels: the original document on the left and the tax view on the right. The tax view shows extracted line items with confidence badges, the eight formal checks, and your calculated bonus.

Tax years

The years page aggregates all invoices per calendar year. For each year you see the estimated bonus, the number of invoices, and a button to generate the ELSTER PDF export.

Pricing

HandwerkerBonus offers three tiers:

  • Free (€0/month): Up to 4 invoices per year, §35a formal check, in-browser annual summary.
  • Pro (€4.99/month or €29/year): Unlimited invoices, ELSTER-ready PDF export, multi-year comparison, priority support.
  • Family (€49/year): Everything in Pro for up to 4 household accounts with a shared annual summary.

All prices include VAT. Cancel monthly with no minimum term.

Security and privacy

All data is stored on EU servers in Frankfurt (eu-central-1). We are fully GDPR-compliant. Your invoices are stored in a private Supabase storage bucket with row-level security: only you can access your own data.

No AI vendor ever sees your raw data in a retrainable context. AI keys are server-side only. The §35a calculation is deterministic TypeScript, never delegated to an LLM.

Every AI call (OCR model, prompt hash, response, cost, latency) is logged in a full audit trail for transparency and StBerG compliance.

On request, we delete all your data within 7 days. You can also delete individual invoices at any time from the app.

Settings

Access your settings from the sidebar. You can view your email, change your language preference, and see your current subscription plan. Privacy information about data storage is also displayed here.

Contact and support

For questions, feedback or support requests, reach out to us at info@wamocon.com or call +49 6196 5838311.

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