Required fields on a penalty notice
Every penalty notice (Strafmandat) must carry a minimum set of fields before the system will accept it. This reference explains each required field, its rules, and how the "authority" is captured for domestic versus international notices.
Core required fields
The create and edit forms both enforce the same seven core fields. If any is missing or invalid, the save is rejected with "Please complete all required mandate fields."
| Field | Rule |
|---|---|
| Violation type | Required. Identifies the kind of offence (the violation type key). |
| Date occurred | Required. The date and time of the offence, in UTC. Cannot be empty. |
| Location | Required. Free text; surrounding spaces are trimmed. |
| Amount | Required and must be greater than zero. |
| Vehicle | Required. Must reference a valid fleet vehicle (a positive vehicle ID). |
| Aktenzeichen (authority case reference) | Required. The reference number the issuing authority printed on the notice. |
| Country | Required. A two-letter ISO code, stored in uppercase (for example DE). |
How the authority is captured
There is no separate "authority name" box for domestic notices. For a notice issued in your home country, the Aktenzeichen plus the country code identify the issuing authority (Behörde). This keeps the domestic form short, because the case reference already ties the notice to a specific authority.
International notices
When you flag a notice as international, the system requires four additional authority fields so the foreign authority can be reached and audited:
- Authority name
- Authority city
- Authority postal code
- Authority street address
If any of these is blank on an international notice, the save is rejected with "Please complete required international authority details." When the international flag is off, these fields are cleared and ignored.
Tip: The two most common validation failures are an amount of zero and a missing vehicle. Both are treated as required, so confirm the fine amount is above zero and a vehicle is selected before saving.
Which intake paths enforce these fields
- Manual create and edit — enforce all seven core fields, plus the international authority fields when applicable.
- Bulk CSV import — enforces the same fields per row; the country code must be exactly two letters and the amount must parse as a positive number.
- OCR confirmation — creates a draft notice from the extracted fields. Because OCR maps only the case reference, date, location, and amount, you usually need to edit the draft afterwards to add the vehicle and country before the notice can be completed.
Note: A notice in the terminal resolved status cannot be edited, so make sure the required fields are correct before you resolve it.
Related
- Create a penalty notice manually
- Correct an imported or captured penalty notice
- Prepare your CSV file for import
- What the Strafmandate module does
