FastBill vs Lexware Office

FastBill

What is documented is Belegerfassung, Zahlungszuordnung and a bundled DATEV export to the Steuerberater — an Einnahmen-Ausgaben-Übersicht with categorisation, not a ledger. No SKR03/SKR04, no journal, no opening balances and no period close appear anywhere; the Buchführung itself evidently happens at the adviser. EÜR-grade pre-bookkeeping, nothing more.

Lexware Office

The chart of accounts is real — SKR03 or SKR04, switchable, with existing bookings migrated automatically — calendar months serve as the booking periods, and a monthly locking cycle stands in for the period close. We found no public information on free manual postings, journals, opening balances, cost centres or accruals, and the fiscal year is fixed to the calendar year.

FastBill

One marketing line — 'GoBD-konforme Aufbewahrung' — with no Verfahrensdokumentation, no change log, no unalterable postings and no GDPdU/Z3 export for the auditor. Credit only for the retention statements (10 years, up to 30) in the privacy policy; that is a retention assertion, not an audit trail.

Lexware Office

Immutability is documented better than most: automatic monthly locking in a night window with a cutoff to the second-to-last month, an initial locking on activation, manual locking to a chosen date, a protocol of every executed locking with timestamps, and submission of the VAT advance return locks that period's bookings. For what a Betriebsprüfung needs beyond that, we found no public information on corrections booked as reversals, a per-posting change history, retention across the statutory period, a supplied Verfahrensdokumentation, or a data export for the auditor.

FastBill

UStVA prepared fully automatically and transmitted to the Finanzamt with one click, without ELSTER certificate, with Ist/Soll and Kleinunternehmerregelung settable — rubric level 5's core honestly met. Reverse-charge and intra-community supply are not evidenced, and no EÜR, OSS, Zusammenfassende Meldung or correction filing appears in the evidence.

Lexware Office

The VAT advance return runs end to end — positions filled per transaction, one-click transmission with ELSTER confirmation, null returns, payment by direct debit or transfer, an automatic voucher afterwards — with cash-versus-accrual timing, minimum-cash taxation, §13b reverse charge, intra-community supplies and Dauerfristverlängerung documented. Destination-country OSS taxation is explicitly routed outside the product, and we found no public information on the EÜR or a balance sheet, the Zusammenfassende Meldung, §19 small-business treatment or E-Bilanz; retrospective filings are limited to the second-to-last year.

FastBill

Scan-App with Texterkennung, automatischer Bankabgleich in Premium, Belegimport from portals, and ZUGFeRD/XRechnung sent and received in every tariff — the evidence chain is partly closed. Rule-based matching with learning, breadth of PSD2 connections and ersetzendes Scannen are not evidenced, so I cannot certify paper destruction.

Lexware Office

Fetched bank transactions receive matching suggestions on each refresh, the matching logic is documented in detail — criteria, improvement markers, checks in both directions, up to 1000 assignments per operation — and a posting only exists once the user accepts a suggestion, with separate guidance on genuinely linking bank transaction and receipt. We found no public information on OCR receipt capture, rule-based matching with learning, ZUGFeRD/XRechnung handling, or documented replacement scanning; an e-invoicing module is named in the product navigation without format detail.

FastBill

DATEV-Export in XML format is available from Solo upward, and Pro offers the DATEV-Rechnungsdatenservice 1.0 — the data reaches the Berater in his format. The evidence shows no read-only or scoped adviser login, nothing coming back (corrections), and no protocol of what a third party changed.

Lexware Office

Four handover scenarios are documented down to the ZIP files — manual DATEV Belegtransfer and Stapelbuchungsimport, or DATEVconnect online via the Rechnungsdatenservice and Buchungsdatenservice — and the export started from the tax-adviser login produces receipt and booking files that link automatically in DATEV Kanzlei Rechnungswesen, booking to receipt image. The adviser seat is free and the last login is visible, but access cannot be restricted to individual areas — the adviser sees everything including connected bank accounts — and we found no public information on corrections coming back from DATEV or an audit of what the adviser changed.

FastBill

Hosting in Germany, Rechenzentrum in Deutschland, contracting entity FastBill GmbH in Frankfurt — the foundation stands. But Intercom, MailChimp and Calendly are US services (covered only by standard contractual clauses), the datacentre is not named, and no archive export is evidenced that keeps the books auditable for the statutory period after the customer leaves.

Lexware Office

The vendor presents as a German house from Freiburg, but we found no public information on where the books are hosted or on any subprocessor; only separate privacy statements for the cloud and the desktop products are offered. A manual export of vouchers and booking data remains available even after cancellation, but we found no public information on a documented archive export that keeps retention compliant for the statutory period after leaving.

FastBill

Tiers with monthly equivalents, billing period (annual debit), per-tier user and bank-account limits, priced add-ons and net-price treatment are all public; the annual invoice for Solo through Pro is computable. Premium is only 'ab 53 €' with no stated driver, overage appears as 'ab' prices, and no minimum term is given.

Lexware Office

We found no public prices at all in the captured material — no tier price, no booking or document limits, no minimum term, no VAT treatment; the only pricing statement is that the tax adviser access is free. A business cannot compute an annual invoice from these pages.