The DATEV alternative without the firm loop

Your firm bills ongoing bookkeeping and the DATEV licence under the German tax-advisor fee schedule (StBVV) — not a fixed price, but a fee range depending on effort and receipt volume. In practice, ongoing bookkeeping for the self-employed often runs around €100–300 a month (per StBVV, depending on effort), plus annual closing and advisory work. In return, you don't have to make a single routine booking yourself.

In the classic setup, you send receipts to the firm via DATEV Unternehmen online, they get booked there, and the BWA and reports usually come back only the following month. That's thorough and audit-proof, but you work with a time lag instead of real-time numbers.

DATEV is primarily a tax-firm IT system: the automation sits on the firm's side, and the firm's professionals handle the ongoing categorization. For you as a client, that means little click-work of your own — but also little direct insight into the logic, and you depend on the firm's capacity and pace.

In the end-to-end DATEV setup, everything runs continuously through the firm and its DATEV environment — from ongoing bookings to annual closing from a single source. That's the right choice for complex balance-sheet accounting, audit-heavy requirements, or when you deliberately want to hand off your entire bookkeeping. DATEV Unternehmen online does require a firm, though: without a tax advisor, you can't use it on your own.