FastBill vs Lexware Office

FastBill

There is no ledger in this sheet: no double-entry, no SKR03/04, no journal, no opening balances, and nowhere a period close that locks — what's evidenced is Einnahmen/Ausgaben tracking, automatic receipt categorisation, and a bundled export for the Steuerberater to do the actual booking. Even the VAT machinery implies categories, not accounts, and no account list or EÜR is ever described.

Lexware Office

SKR03 and SKR04 are supported and a switch migrates every booking to the new chart, and the monthly automatic Festschreibung with its protocol gives a real lock on the month. The fiscal year is hard-wired to the calendar year, and I found no public information on manual free postings, journals, opening balances, cost centres, recurring entries or accruals.

FastBill

"GoBD-konforme Aufbewahrung" is a marketing bullet and the privacy policy does state 2–10 year retention (up to 30 for enforceable claims) — that's more than a bare claim, but there is nothing behind it: no unalterable postings, no change log, no Verfahrensdokumentation, no auditor export, and since no ledger is evidenced there are no postings to make unalterable.

Lexware Office

The automatic monthly Festschreibung is described in substance — GoBD-conformant locking with a cutoff rule back to the second-to-last month and a protocol of every execution — which is more than a marketing claim. But I found no public information on a Verfahrensdokumentation, a change history for corrections booked as reversals, the statutory retention period, or a GDPdU export for the auditor.

FastBill

The UStVA is genuinely handled: fully automatic, Ist and Soll, §19 configurable, submitted to the Finanzamt with one click and no ELSTER certificate — and that in the smallest tariff. But the evidence is silent on EÜR, Bilanz, reverse-charge/intra-community, OSS and Dauerfristverlängerung, so the filing year ends at the VAT pre-return.

Lexware Office

The USt-VA is filled automatically from the transactions and goes out with one click, ELSTER confirmation, SEPA or transfer payment, and locking of the submitted period; Ist/Soll timing, Mindest-Ist-Besteuerung, §13b reverse charge and Dauerfristverlängerung are all documented. OSS appears only as guidance that destination-country taxation must be reported elsewhere, retroactive filing stops at the second-to-last year, and I found no public information on Zusammenfassende Meldung, §19 small business, EÜR or E-Bilanz.

FastBill

Own scan app with OCR, automatic receipt import and capture, automatic bank matching, a missing-receipts report, and ZUGFeRD/XRechnung in both directions across all plans — that is a decent capture pipeline and the exception report is the right instinct. But no PSD2 breadth, no rule-based learning, no documented ersetzendes Scannen, and no one-click posting-to-receipt chain since postings as such aren't evidenced.

Lexware Office

Fetched bank transactions automatically receive matching suggestions checked in both directions, with documented criteria and improvements such as the document number in the remittance info, and receipts link to their postings — but every suggestion waits for a manual "Alle Annehmen" before a booking exists. I found no public information on OCR capture, e-invoice handling or replacement scanning, and no statement on which banks are fed.

FastBill

DATEV XML export including Belege is available from Solo upward, and Pro adds the DATEV Rechnungsdatenservice 1.0, so receipts and invoice data genuinely reach the adviser's DATEV. But it is strictly one-way: no adviser login, no scoped access, no audit of what anyone changed — the adviser works around the system, not in it.

Lexware Office

Four documented DATEV handover scenarios, DATEVconnect online with the Buchungsdatenservice, and a Steuerberaterzugang export whose two coordinated ZIPs auto-link booking to receipt image in DATEV Kanzlei Rechnungswesen — receipts and bookings both travel correctly. The adviser login is free and last login is visible, but the captured help states the Kanzlei's access cannot be restricted to individual areas and sees everything including bank accounts, and I found no public information on corrections coming back or an audit of what the adviser changed.

FastBill

German hosting and a German GmbH in the imprint are confirmed, which I judge ahead of the pipeline's "unknown" — but the chain leaks: Intercom (live chat inside the applications), MailChimp and Calendly are US processors with only standard contractual clauses as safeguard. No full subprocessor register, no certification, and nothing on what happens to the ten-year retention obligation when you leave the vendor.

Lexware Office

The vendor is German (Haufe-Lexware, Freiburg) and a manual export of vouchers and booking data still works after cancellation, but that is all the captured pages hold. I found no public information on hosting location, ownership, or any subprocessor list — where the books live and who could be compelled to produce them is unevidenced, and retention across the full statutory period after leaving is not addressed.

FastBill

All four tiers, user counts, bank-account limits, VAT treatment, billing period and the main add-on prices are public, and DATEV export starts in the cheapest plan — so a small shop can get close to its real invoice. But Premium is only "ab 53 €", add-ons are "ab", no minimum term is stated, and receipt limits with overage beyond the 10 € extra-receipts add-on are not computable.

Lexware Office

The only pricing fact captured is that the tax adviser access is "komplett kostenlos". No tier prices, booking or document limits, minimum term or VAT treatment appear anywhere on the captured pages, so a business cannot compute a real annual invoice from public information.