FastBill vs Lexware Office

FastBill

Everything on the evidence describes income-and-expense preparation for someone else's books: an Einnahmen-Ausgaben overview, automatic categorisation, and a bundled export the Steuerberater then books. No SKR03/SKR04, no journal, no free postings, no opening balances, no period close anywhere in the evidence — this is EÜR hand-off, not a ledger.

Lexware Office

SKR03 and SKR04 are both supported, switching migrates all existing bookings automatically, and the fiscal year is the calendar year with calendar-month booking periods. Immobilization can be triggered manually to any chosen date or runs automatically each month with a protocol of every execution — a genuine period lock, and the DATEV batch-booking export shows a real ledger underneath. We found no public information on cost centres, recurring and reversing entries, accruals, opening balances, or multi-year comparatives.

FastBill

'GoBD-konforme Aufbewahrung' is five words on the pricing page with nothing behind it — the exact thing I've seen printed a hundred times. No Verfahrensdokumentation offered, no described audit trail, not one word on unalterable postings or change history; the only adjacent fact is the privacy policy's ten-year retention statement, and a GDPR page is not audit substance.

Lexware Office

The GoBD claim has an actual feature behind it: bookings are fixed automatically each month in a nightly window with a defined cutoff, a manual option and an initial run on activation, a protocol records every execution with timestamp, and submitting the VAT return locks the period. We found no public information on a supplied Verfahrensdokumentation, an auditor data export, a stated statutory retention period, or corrections booked as reversals. At least an export of vouchers and booking data still works after cancellation, which protects the exit.

FastBill

The UStVA is prepared and transmitted to the Finanzamt with one click even in the cheapest tier, with Ist/Soll and the Kleinunternehmerregelung configurable — genuinely solid. But it stops there: no EÜR or balance sheet produced, no reverse-charge, no OSS, no Zusammenfassende Meldung anywhere in the evidence.

Lexware Office

The VAT return runs as a closed loop: positions fill automatically from each business transaction, one click transmits to the tax office with ELSTER confirmation, payment runs by SEPA debit or transfer, the matching voucher is created automatically, and the period locks on submission — with Dauerfristverlängerung handled as a prerequisite setting. Timing logic is detailed: cash and accrual taxation including the minimum-cash-tax rule, §13b services and intra-community supplies by document or service date, and guidance that destination-country VAT goes through OSS or separate registration rather than the return. We found no public information on EÜR or balance-sheet production, the Zusammenfassende Meldung, §19 small-business handling, or E-Bilanz; retroactive returns stop at the second-to-last year.

FastBill

Scan app with OCR, automatic bank matching, portal-based receipt import and ZUGFeRD/XRechnung in both directions are all evidenced — but the automation sits in Premium (30 receipts included, more as paid add-ons from 10 €) or in priced add-ons. No PSD2 breadth claim, no rule learning, and replacement scanning is never documented, so the 8-anchor stays out of reach.

Lexware Office

Bank transactions fetched on refresh automatically receive matching suggestions — a matching document or an accounting category, checked in both directions against stated criteria — and a booking only exists after the user accepts, with at most 1000 assignments per run. Receipts are linked to their postings and each return position expands to its vouchers. We found no public information on OCR capture, e-invoice handling in both directions, or replacement scanning, and the matching is suggestion-based rather than rule-driven with learning.

FastBill

DATEV XML export of invoices and receipts exists even in Solo, Pro adds the DATEV Rechnungsdatenservice 1.0, and the one-click hand-off to the Steuerberater is real. But there is no adviser login of any kind — no scoped access, no audit of what they changed — so the adviser works around the system, not in it.

Lexware Office

The DATEV handoff is thorough: four documented scenarios split by task division, exports of receipts and batch bookings as coordinated ZIP files that link automatically in DATEV Kanzlei Rechnungswesen, a DATEVconnect online background transfer, and an ADDISON OneClick interface. The adviser seat is explicitly free, though the automatic interfaces stop at cancellation while a manual export remains. The captured pages state plainly that the adviser access cannot be scoped — the office sees everything including connected bank accounts, only the last login is visible — and we found no public information on corrections flowing back from the adviser.

FastBill

German company (HRB AG Frankfurt), German datacenter, and named subprocessors with EU Standard Contractual Clauses for third-country transfers puts this above the floor. But the infrastructure provider is not named, the 'list' is a privacy-policy excerpt that puts Intercom, MailChimp and Calendly (US) in the support chain, and there is not one word about an export that keeps statutory retention alive after the contract ends.

Lexware Office

On sovereignty the captured pages give nothing checkable: the contracting entity's jurisdiction is not confirmed on the vendor's own pages, and we found no public information on hosting location or any subprocessor list. Two privacy statements are linked — one general, one for the cloud product — but their content on processors and hosting is not shown. A manual export of vouchers and booking data survives cancellation, which at least protects retention after leaving.

FastBill

Tiers, users, bank accounts, add-on prices and net-plus-VAT treatment are public, and DATEV export starts in the cheapest plan — better than most. But Premium is only 'ab 53 € mtl.', receipt overage is 'ab 10 €', no minimum term is stated and there is no price for an extra bank account below the unlimited tiers, so the real annual invoice is not fully computable.

Lexware Office

We found no public information on tier prices, billing period, booking or document limits, the cost of an extra bank account, or the tier where DATEV export begins; the captured pages show no prices at all. The one priced fact is the tax adviser access, stated as completely free. A business cannot compute its annual invoice from these pages.