The DATEV alternative without the firm loop

It depends on what you want to replace. DATEV isn't a single program but the software ecosystem of your tax firm. For the everyday bookkeeping of small businesses and the self-employed, it's often overdimensioned. If you want to handle invoicing, receipt capture, bank matching, and EÜR/VAT returns yourself and for free, Norman is a good alternative: you do the day-to-day in real time and hand structured DATEV-format data to your tax advisor only when they need it. Norman is not a tax firm's in-house software, though: complex annual accounts stay with the firm.

With Norman, invoicing and full bookkeeping are free; only the finished tax return is paid: the Klein plan from €9/month, the Pro plan with VAT returns from €21/month (billed yearly). DATEV has no public price list: your firm bills ongoing bookkeeping and the licence under the German tax-advisor fee schedule (StBVV): not a fixed price, but a fee range depending on effort. 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. Your firm will give you the exact figures.

Yes. The day-to-day bookkeeping (capturing receipts, matching bank activity, preparing EÜR and VAT returns) you may handle yourself as a self-employed person or small business; only unrestricted tax advice and certain tasks are reserved for tax advisors. In Norman, you do the day-to-day yourself and for free, with AI receipt capture and automatic bank matching. For annual closing, balance sheets, or complex questions, you loop in your tax advisor on purpose and hand them structured data in DATEV format.

DATEV Unternehmen online is the bridge through which you hand receipts and bank data to your firm's DATEV environment, and it requires a firm: without a tax advisor you can't use it on your own, because the firm has to order it for you first. If you run receipt capture, bank matching, and bookkeeping in Norman yourself, many small businesses no longer need that monthly upload loop for day-to-day work: the data sits structured in Norman and goes to the firm in DATEV format when needed. Whether your firm still requires DATEV Unternehmen online is best agreed directly with them.

Yes. Norman offers a full DATEV integration including booking data: receipts, payments, and bookings sit structured and are exported in DATEV format so your firm can carry on cleanly. You handle the day-to-day yourself and bring the advisor in on purpose (for annual closing, complex matters, or a final review) instead of billing every receipt and ongoing booking through the firm.

Yes. Norman is built from the ground up around AI and trained specifically for German tax law. The AI reads receipts you upload or receive by email, suggests the booking and tax rate, matches bank activity automatically, and gives you personalized tax-saving tips. EÜR and VAT returns stay continuously up to date from that, and an AI assistant fills out the tax form with you when you file. So the ongoing capture the firm handles in the DATEV model, you do yourself in minutes.

It depends on your case. Norman fits freelancers, Kleinunternehmer, and small UGs/GmbHs with manageable ongoing bookkeeping who want to keep their numbers in their own hands and not pay for every routine booking, with AI receipt capture, automatic bank matching, and real-time numbers. The end-to-end DATEV setup through a firm is the better choice for complex balance-sheet accounting, a larger GmbH, audit-heavy requirements, or when you deliberately want to hand off your entire bookkeeping. Many combine both: the day-to-day yourself in Norman, annual closing through the tax advisor via DATEV export.

Yes. Norman is available in German, English, and more languages: the interface, support, and the tax forms. You can switch between languages at any time. That makes Norman especially handy for expats and international founders in Germany who run their own bookkeeping but don't want to do everything in German.