For a small business, the choice of accounting software comes down to six questions, not to the feature list on the vendor's landing page. First: a cash-basis report to copy out by hand, or a VAT return that really goes to the tax office through ELSTER. Second: how receipts get in, by phone photo, by email to a collection address, from supplier portals, or not automatically at all. Third: a separate login for your tax advisor, and its price. Fourth: what comes out, a DATEV booking batch, an IDEA data set for a tax audit, or plain CSV. Fifth: what happens to your data when you switch providers, because the retention obligation keeps running. Sixth: e-invoicing, receiving and sending looked at separately. The plan that usually covers a one-person business, meaning invoices, receipt archive, VAT return, cash-basis statement and tax advisor access, costs 12.90 to 25.90 euros net per month across the vendors compared here (as of September 2026). The difference is rarely the price. It is which plan bookkeeping starts in.
The legwork around this software has gone through Peter, my AI employee for receipts and bookkeeping since 19 August 2026. What AI in bookkeeping actually takes over is in AI Bookkeeping: What Actually Works Today; the duties, deadlines and tax status behind it are in Bookkeeping Basics for the Self-Employed. This is a software overview and not tax advice for your situation.
Price and tax coverage compared
All prices net per month, as of September 2026, from the vendors' pricing pages. These are German tools; the tax functions refer to German filings.
Two things stand out. First, the bookkeeping itself usually appears only in the middle or upper plan. At Lexware Office the cheapest version with VAT return and cash-basis statement is called L, at 21.90 euros, while the 7.90-euro version S only captures and archives receipts. Comparing entry prices often means comparing receipt archives, not bookkeeping.
Second, at WISO MeinBüro the ceiling is not the feature set but revenue: the entry plan is capped at 25,000 euros a year, the bookkeeping plan at 120,000, unlimited only above that. For a growing business, a price increase announced in the footnote.
The difference that matters: report or transmission
Almost every tool advertises the cash-basis statement, the Einnahmen-Überschuss-Rechnung. Usually that means an evaluation to carry over into the tax return, not electronic transmission of the Anlage EÜR. With the VAT return it is the other way round: in the bookkeeping plans of Lexware Office, sevDesk, Papierkram and WISO MeinBüro it goes out through the ELSTER interface.
In this selection, by the functions compared here, only one vendor goes further. In its Steuern plan, Accountable covers income tax, trade tax and the annual VAT return by its own description and transmits them from the app, for 29.90 euros net per month on annual billing, 37.40 billed monthly. If you want to get through the year without a tax advisor, that is the only row addressing it.
How receipts get in
The route into the software decides whether you use it or work a night shift in December. Four are common, most vendors support several; cash takings come in through a cash book of their own, and which cash book app fits is a comparison of its own.
- Photo through the app. Photograph the receipt, text recognition fills the form. At Lexware Office and sevDesk the app is in the bookkeeping plans, at WISO MeinBüro in the smallest plan.
- Email to a collection address. Forward the invoice from your inbox, done. The most underrated route, because it is the only one that works without a phone.
- Pulling documents from supplier portals. Dedicated services fetch invoices from online portals instead of you clicking through ten customer accounts.
- E-invoicing. It arrives structured, so the text recognition step drops out entirely. The cleanest route, and you still check content and assignment: a wrong mandatory field at the sender stays wrong even when it reads in cleanly.
What the recognition can do, and where it stops, is in AI Bookkeeping: What Actually Works Today. For the tool choice only this counts: check before you buy that your main route is supported. If 80 percent arrive by email, you do not need a good app.
Your tax advisor has a vote, so ask before you buy
This is where most comparison lists stop and practice starts. Often the choice is not free, because the firm dictates what it can work with.
DATEV makes this clearest. Its price list for companies has DATEV Unternehmen online at 11.56 euros per month (item no. 95138, unlimited user licence) and DATEV Belege online on top at 3.83 euros per client record per month (item no. 95157), each plus VAT, as of 08/2026. You do not set it up alone: it needs an access medium, and the client record is created with the firm.
The firm reaches into the decision at cloud vendors too. For its DATEV booking data service, sevDesk states explicitly that your tax advisor has to create an account for you in DATEV Unternehmen online. Without it, only the file export remains, passed along by hand.
From that follows an order that saves a lot of trouble: ask first, buy second, with three questions. What do you prefer to work with, and what does it cost me if I pick something else. Do you take my data through an interface or as a file. And what do you need from me at month end. Those answers usually leave two tools.
What comes out: the export formats
An export is not just an export, and the difference shows only once it hurts.
Nobody checks the third row day to day, and it counts in an audit. Under section 147 (6) of the German Fiscal Code (AO), the tax authority may inspect the stored data during an external audit, use the system, and demand the data in a machine-evaluable format. A tool that only does PDF and CSV does not automatically meet that.
Can you get back out?
You ask this before you buy; afterwards it cannot be changed. The legal position is clearer than the market treats it.
Booking receipts have to be kept eight years under section 147 (3) AO, books and annual accounts ten, and in digital form section 147 (2) AO requires them available at all times throughout, legible without delay and machine-evaluable. Your subscription ends, that obligation does not.
What this means when you switch is in the GoBD, the German Federal Ministry of Finance circular of 28 November 2019. Margin note 142: you may switch off the old software only if the data, including metadata, master data, transaction data and links, moves into the new system in a quantitatively and qualitatively equivalent way and the new one allows the same evaluations. Otherwise, says margin note 143, the old system stays alive. Margin note 144 closes the obvious back door: data extracts, reports or print files are not enough insofar as not all data subject to retention is carried over. A folder of PDFs as a parting gift does not do it.
The law does put a deadline on that duty, one the 2019 GoBD text does not yet contain. Under section 147 (6) AO, when you change the data processing system or move data out of it, it is enough to hold that data exclusively on a machine-readable and machine-evaluable medium once the fifth calendar year after the changeover has passed, provided no external audit has begun. So you do not have to keep the old system running for the full eight or ten years, but you do for the first five calendar years after a migration that was not equivalent. And what remains after that has to stay machine-evaluable. A printout is not.
So clarify three points before you sign: what you can still retrieve after cancelling and for how long, whether you get all the data out including receipt images and links, and in what format. Lexware Office answers the first in writing on its help page: the data is retained, you keep read access to data and receipts, and you can no longer capture new receipts or change existing ones. DATEV has a line in the price list for it: the flat fee for an inactive Unternehmen online client record, 350.00 euros one-off (item no. 20646), requiring a cancelled contract and membership in DATEV eG for the period of storage. An openly stated price for a problem other vendors do not even name.
E-invoicing: nearly everywhere, but check the two halves
Receiving and sending are two functions, often in different plans. Lexware Office captures e-invoices from version S, creating and sending starts at version M. sevDesk allows three a month in the free plan, unlimited from the invoicing plan. Papierkram supports XRechnung and ZUGFeRD from plan S, receiving works in every plan. Accountable lists both formats across all plans. Which deadlines apply to whom is in German E-Invoicing: Dates and Exemptions.
What the software does not do
Every one of these tools accepts receipts, and several flag bank transactions that still have none attached. What none takes over: getting the missing receipt, chasing the vendor for it, clearing a line item on a statement for which one never arrived. That work before the software is the legwork here, and Peter does it: screening, assigning, matching. He works in my bookkeeping interface in the browser, following a written process description, and what is not in it, he does not do.
The figures from his first run are public: 116 receipts screened, 38 of 40 assigned correctly, a good hour. Two stayed open because his process could not decide them unambiguously; he reported them instead of making them fit. Second run in September: 68 receipts, 54 checked, no discrepancies in the control export. What such a setup looks like is in AI Agent for Bookkeeping and Inbox.
Frequently asked questions
Which accounting software is best for a small business?
None is best for everyone, but there is a short rule. If you work with an accounting firm, their interface has a vote, so ask there first. If you want to file your tax returns yourself, only one vendor in this selection covers that scope. If you only need invoices and a clean receipt archive, the smallest paid plan is enough almost everywhere.
Is there free accounting software for small businesses?
Yes, several have a permanently free plan, among them sevDesk, Papierkram and Accountable (as of September 2026). They usually cover invoices and a limited number of receipts; the VAT return, the cash-basis statement and tax advisor access start at the first paid plan in all three. Lexware Office is not one of them, it gives you 30 days to try instead. The entry is free, the bookkeeping is not.
What does accounting software cost for a one-person business?
For a plan with bookkeeping, VAT returns and tax advisor access, 12.90 to 25.90 euros net per month (as of September 2026). Annual or two-year billing lowers the price noticeably but ties you in, and that matters for the exit question. If you only write and archive invoices, you stay below that or on a free plan.
Do I need DATEV if my tax advisor uses it?
Not necessarily. The common cloud tools export a DATEV-compatible booking batch, enough for many firms; the other routes are in DATEV Integration: The Basics. Compatible does not automatically mean every firm reads it in, receipt images and chart of accounts included, without rework. So send a test export from one month early instead of the whole year in January.
Can I switch software later?
Yes, but not without consequences. If the migration is not equivalent, you keep the old system operational for now; once the fifth calendar year after the changeover has passed, section 147 (6) AO accepts a machine-readable and machine-evaluable medium, as long as no external audit has begun. A PDF export is not enough if data is lost on the way.
Is e-invoicing included in every plan?
Receiving is, almost everywhere, sending is not: several vendors put it in the next plan up or cap the number in the free plan. In a price comparison that is where two apparently identical plans stop being identical. So check the two halves separately before you line prices up.
How to continue
Do it in this order and you will not need a trial in five tools. Write down how your receipts arrive, split by email, paper, portal and e-invoice. Call your tax advisor and ask the three questions above. Then compare the two tools left at the plan including the VAT return, not at the entry price. And before you sign, search the help pages for the word cancellation.
If an evening a month still goes into assigning and matching after all that, the cause is not the software, it is the work before it. How I handed exactly that work to an AI employee, with a learning mode and a control count before and after every run, I show in my community Claude Practitioners. Put your list from step one to the group there before you decide. What an AI employee is in the first place and what getting started looks like is on the page on hiring an AI employee.
