The Placeholder System: the Foundation for Templates

Whether you're writing an invoice template or an email template: wherever an actual value should later appear, you insert a placeholder.

• In the template: "for my interpreting assignment on date"
• On the invoice: "for my interpreting assignment on 20.07.2026"

Placeholders are building blocks, not text

A placeholder isn't a word you have to spell correctly – it's a building block that you place into the text. In the editor, you see it as a small grey tile in the middle of the sentence. You can delete it like a single character, move it, or keep writing before and after it.

This has a practical advantage: there are no typos. Either the building block is there – or it isn't.

Inserting a placeholder

In every field that supports placeholders, you'll find the Platzhalter einfügen (Insert placeholder) button underneath. Alternatively, just type two curly braces {{ in the text – the same selection menu opens.

The selection menu with search and topic groups

1. Place the cursor where the value should go.
2. Click Platzhalter einfügen or type {{.
3. Search for the right entry – the search filters by name and description.
4. Select it. Done.

Only matching placeholders

The selection menu shows only the placeholders that actually work in this field. In the closing text of a cancellation invoice, you'll therefore find the original invoice number; in the text of a reminder, the outstanding amount – and in neither will you find something that would stay empty there anyway.

The available placeholders

Auftragsdaten (Assignment Data)

Everything tied to the assignment itself.

Placeholder	Value
occasion	Reason / subject of the assignment
date	Assignment date
cancelledOn · cancelledBy	Cancellation date and who cancelled (Merkblatt Punkt 8)
orderedOn · orderedBy	Date the assignment was commissioned and who commissioned it (Merkblatt Punkt 8)
timeRange	Interpreting time from–to (e.g. 09:00–17:30)
timeStart · timeEnd	Interpreting time start and end
doorToDoorWindow	Door-to-door assignment window: first departure to last arrival, incl. waiting time
assignmentWindow	The entire assignment with travel folded into the interpreting block, excl. waiting time
serviceAddress	Assignment address
startAddress · endAddress	Departure and return address

What was billed – these values always match the line item's "Menge" (Quantity) column:

Placeholder	Value
billableDuration · billedQuantity	Billed quantity for this line item, rounded according to the billing model (= "Menge" column)
travelHours	Billed travel time (rounded if applicable)
hourlyRate	Hourly rate for this line item
unitRate	Unit price for this line item (e.g. a flat fee)
travelKmRate	Rate per kilometre
lineTotal	Total amount for this line item

What was measured – so the Kostenträger (cost bearer) can follow how the rounding was applied:

Placeholder	Value
assignmentDuration	Measured assignment duration incl. travel (e.g. 5 hrs 13 min)
serviceDuration	Measured interpreting duration excluding travel
travelDuration · travelOutDuration	Measured travel duration, total and outbound only
travelOutRange · travelReturnRange	Outbound and return trip as a time span
travelWindow	Travel time window: first departure to last arrival
travelDistanceKm	Distance travelled in kilometres
distanceTier	Applied flat-rate distance tier (e.g. "up to 50 km")
transportMode	Mode of transport (car / public transport)
ticketDescription	Description of the public transport ticket (incl. Deutschlandticket note)
ticketReference	Receipt/ticket number of a billable public transport trip

Kunde (Customer)

Placeholder	Value
customerName	Customer's name
customerBirthDate	Date of birth
customerInsuranceNumber	Insurance number
customerFileNumber	File reference number

Kostenträgerdaten (Cost Bearer Data)

Placeholder	Value
recipientName	Name of the cost bearer
recipientAddress	Address of the cost bearer
salutation	Salutation (from the cost bearer)
travelPolicyNote	Travel expense note

Rechnungsdaten (Invoice Data)

Placeholder	Value
invoiceNumber	Invoice number
serviceDate	Service date

Only in cancellation and correction texts

Placeholder	Value
originalInvoiceNumber	Number of the original invoice
originalInvoiceDate	Date of the original invoice
stornoInvoiceNumber	Number of the cancellation invoice

Only in reminder texts

A reminder (Mahnung) doesn't know about assignment or customer data – it relates to the invoice. That's why there's a separate, smaller set of placeholders here:

Placeholder	Value
invoiceNumber	Invoice number
originalDueDate	Original due date
newDueDate	New payment deadline
reminderStage	Reminder stage (1–3)
outstandingAmount	Outstanding amount
dunningFee	Dunning fee
interest	Late payment interest
total	Total amount (due)
recipientName · salutation	Name and salutation of the cost bearer

The selection in the editor is the source of truth

These tables show the state as of publication. What's always authoritative is the selection in the editor: it knows exactly which placeholders actually get filled for each field.

What happens when a value is missing?

Not every assignment has every value – not every customer has a file reference number, not every trip has a ticket. If an empty placeholder sits in the middle of a sentence, its spot simply stays blank – no error message appears, and no {{…}} shows up in the finished PDF.

Hiding a line when the value is empty

Often, though, the entire line should disappear: "Reason:" without a reason helps no one. You switch this on directly at the placeholder:

Just tap (or click) the placeholder tile in the description – each tap toggles it. The small line icon on the tile shows the current state: three solid lines mean "the line always stays", a dashed middle line means "the line disappears if the value is empty". Hovering over it with the mouse, the tooltip tells you what the next click will do. Without the switch, the line always stays, even with an empty value – so nothing ever happens behind your back. The built-in templates have the switch turned on wherever it makes sense.

By keyboard: Tab takes you to each tile, Enter opens its settings, Delete removes it.

Bedingungen (Conditions): printing lines depending on the situation

Some lines don't depend on a value but on a situation – for example, the legal sentence about public transport expenses should only appear on invoices where the trip was actually billable (not for a trip made with a Deutschlandticket). For this, the placeholder selection menu has a group called Bedingungen (Conditions):

1. Place the cursor in the relevant line and insert the condition (e.g. "Fahrt mit Deutschlandticket" – trip made with a Deutschlandticket).
2. A dashed tile appears at the start of the line, something like "nur ohne: Deutschlandticket" (only without: Deutschlandticket).
3. Tapping the tile opens its settings: there you choose whether the line is printed only if the condition is true or only if it isn't – or remove the condition again.

The tile itself doesn't print anything; it only controls whether its line appears on the invoice.

For advanced users

Under the hood, both features save ordinary Mustache blocks ({{#wert}}…{{/wert}} and {{^wert}}…{{/wert}}) around the line. If you edit templates as raw text, you can still write this syntax directly – the editor displays it as a tile state and checks when saving that every block is properly closed.

Preview before you send

To check how your placeholders read in the finished document, use the invoice template preview – there you'll see the document with sample data for each type of assignment.