QuickBooks vs Xero

QuickBooks

The captured pages are a privacy statement and nothing else; we found no public information on double-entry, a chart of accounts such as SKR03 or SKR04, journals, opening balances or a period close. Without a ledger description I cannot begin to examine the books underneath the screens.

Xero

The evidence evidences invoicing, bank reconciliation and 'real-time reports' — a ledger of some sort exists — but not one word on double-entry, journals, a chart of accounts, SKR03/SKR04, opening balances or a period close. I can only audit what the vendor documents, and that tops out at simplified bookkeeping with no free posting and no close.

QuickBooks

I ask for the Verfahrensdokumentation and an export the Betriebsprüfer accepts, and we found no public information on either — no GoBD claim, no posting immutability, no change history, no audit trail, no data export for the auditor. The only retention statement in the record covers personal information kept as long as business and legal needs require, which says nothing about posting records surviving the statutory period.

Xero

No GoBD claim, no retention statement, no change log, no Verfahrensdokumentation anywhere on these pages; the sole compliance artifact is a SOC 2 report 'available on request', which says nothing about unalterable postings or statutory German retention. The silence is the finding — nothing here survives a Betriebsprüfung.

QuickBooks

We found no public information on VAT rates or logic, UStVA preparation, ELSTER submission, EÜR or balance sheet output, OSS or reverse-charge handling. The one statement on tax storage concerns US Tax Return Information processed and stored in the United States — American filings, not the German filing year.

Xero

Not a word on VAT rates, UStVA, ELSTER, EÜR or OSS; the tax-relevant facts end at 'use multiple currencies' in the Premium tier. The provenance itself concedes the German filing requirements are not targeted, and the evidence proves it.

QuickBooks

We found no public information on bank feeds or statement import, receipt capture or OCR, matching rules, or e-invoice handling in either direction. The captured pages name session-replay and credit-bureau partners, but nothing on how evidence and money reach the ledger.

Xero

'Smart Document Capture' plus 'auto-reconcile' and 'bulk reconcile' clear the purely-manual bar and suggest receipt capture with suggested matching. But no evidence of bank feeds for German banks, of ZUGFeRD/XRechnung handling, or of documented ersetzendes Scannen — whether the digital receipt is legally sufficient on its own is unevidenced.

QuickBooks

We found no public information on a DATEV export, any accounting export in a named format, or an adviser login of any kind. From this record the year-end handover to the Steuerberater cannot be evidenced at all.

Xero

'250,000 accountants and bookkeepers using Xero' evidences a partner network, but the evidence names no export format at all — no DATEV, not even a generic CSV — and no adviser access model or audit of adviser actions. How the books reach a Steuerberater is simply not documented.

QuickBooks

The contracting controller is Intuit Inc. of the United States, the captured pages name no EU hosting option while reserving storage in any other country where Intuit or its providers operate facilities, and no subprocessor list was confirmed. Certification under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework presumes transfers to the United States rather than EU residency, and we found no public information on an archive export that would keep statutory retention alive after the contract ends.

Xero

The contracting entity is the New Zealand-headquartered Xero group of companies, hosting is stated only as 'Region Global (USD)', and the subprocessor list is unknown — with a ten-year German retention obligation attached to books held under a non-EU vendor with unstated hosting. That is the zero anchor almost verbatim.

QuickBooks

We found no public information on tier prices, billing periods, booking or document limits, charges for extra users or bank accounts, or the price of adviser access. No business can compute an annual invoice from this record.

Xero

Four tiers with public prices, invoice and bill limits, two priced add-ons (expense claims from $4, projects from $7), the 80%-for-3-months promo and one-month cancellation notice are all stated. VAT treatment, adviser access pricing and what happens past the invoice/bill limits are not, so the true annual invoice remains only partly computable.