Yeah, the accounting is there, but not the actual transfer. I.e. you're not transferring the actual money to France, which the French finance ministry would then have to send back to the German one once it got it from the French company (in order for the German one to give it back to the company buying the product).

And the accounting is there because of tax fraud, I guess. And I also guess that the US has a similar accounting system where they have to report the amount purchased per tax bracket and the IDs of the companies they bought from.