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Accounting

Lexware Office

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Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: not determined

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by Haufe-Lexware GmbH & Co. KG · www.lexware.de

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Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The Auditor

Weighted verdict

Arrives with a Betriebsprüfung and asks for the data export and the Verfahrensdokumentation. Wants postings that cannot be altered after the fact, corrections booked as reversals, a complete change history, and retention that survives the full statutory period.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The Auditor

Bookkeeping core

How this is scored

Double-entry, the chart of accounts (SKR03/SKR04), postings, journals, opening balances and period closing — the ledger underneath the pretty screens.

0 — Income-and-expense lists only; no double-entry, no chart of accounts, no journal.

3 — Simplified bookkeeping suitable for EÜR with a fixed account list; no free posting, no period close.

5 — Double-entry with SKR03/SKR04, manual postings, journals, opening balances and a month-end close.

8 — Full ledger with cost centres, recurring and reversing entries, accruals, multi-year comparatives, and a documented close checklist with locking.

10 — An accountant's ledger: configurable charts including customised accounts, period locking with audit, foreign currency with documented valuation, group or multi-entity handling, and reporting that reconciles to the trial balance.

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The Auditor

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. 3 4 5

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GoBD, immutability & audit

How this is scored

Whether the record survives a tax audit: unalterable postings, complete change history, retention across the statutory period, and a Verfahrensdokumentation the vendor actually supplies.

0 — Postings can be edited or deleted without trace; no retention statement, no GoBD claim, no documentation.

3 — GoBD asserted on the marketing page with nothing behind it — no described audit trail, no documentation offered, no statement on retention.

5 — Postings become unalterable after close with corrections booked as reversals, a change log exists, and the statutory retention period is stated.

8 — Documented GoBD conformity with a supplied Verfahrensdokumentation template, complete and exportable audit trail, receipts linked to postings, and a GoBD-compliant data export (GDPdU/Z3) for the auditor.

10 — Audit-ready as a product feature: an independent GoBD certification or attestation published, Verfahrensdokumentation maintained per release, tamper-evident journals, retention executed across the full statutory period, and an export the Betriebsprüfer accepts without argument.

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The Auditor

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. 5 7

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Tax handling & filings

How this is scored

VAT logic and the filings that follow: UStVA, ELSTER submission, EÜR or Bilanz, OSS for cross-border sales, and reverse-charge handling.

0 — No VAT logic beyond a rate field; no filings, no ELSTER.

3 — VAT rates and a UStVA figure to copy out by hand; no electronic submission, no special cases.

5 — UStVA prepared and submitted electronically via ELSTER, EÜR or a simple balance sheet produced, and reverse-charge and intra-community supply handled.

8 — The above plus OSS handling for cross-border B2C, Zusammenfassende Meldung, small-business (§19) and Ist/Soll taxation, permanent extension (Dauerfristverlängerung), and E-Bilanz where relevant.

10 — The filing year is handled end to end: every routine German filing generated and submitted electronically with validation before sending, cross-border VAT determined from the transaction rather than by hand, and correction filings supported.

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The Auditor

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. 7 8

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Receipts, banking & matching

How this is scored

How evidence and money get into the ledger: bank feeds, receipt capture, OCR, matching rules, and whether the digital receipt is legally sufficient on its own.

0 — Manual entry only; no bank connection, no receipt storage.

3 — Bank statement import by file and receipt upload as plain attachments; matching is entirely manual.

5 — Automatic bank feeds for the major German banks, receipt upload with OCR, suggested matches, and receipts linked to their postings.

8 — PSD2 feeds across many institutions, rule-based automatic matching with learning, e-invoice handling (ZUGFeRD/XRechnung) both directions, and replacement scanning (ersetzendes Scannen) documented so paper can be destroyed.

10 — The evidence chain is closed: every posting reaches its receipt in one click, e-invoicing inbound and outbound as standard, documented compliant archiving of the digital original, and matching accurate enough that exceptions rather than transactions are the work.

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The Auditor

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. 1 9 10

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Tax adviser handoff

How this is scored

How the books reach the Steuerberater — DATEV above all — and whether the adviser can work in the system rather than around it.

0 — No adviser access and no accounting export; the year-end is a pile of PDFs.

3 — Generic CSV or Excel export described as "suitable for your tax adviser", with no named format.

5 — A documented DATEV export (postings and, ideally, receipts) plus a read-only login for the adviser.

8 — DATEV export including receipt images with correct linking, or a maintained DATEV interface; the adviser gets their own scoped access with an audit of what they changed.

10 — The adviser is a first-class user: bidirectional DATEV exchange including corrections coming back, or a certified interface; period handover with locking, and a workflow where adviser queries are resolved inside the system.

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The Auditor

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. 11 12

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European sovereignty

How this is scored

Where the books live and who could be compelled to produce them — plus, uniquely here, whether statutory retention survives leaving the vendor. Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline.

0 — Non-EU vendor and contracting entity, hosting unstated or non-EU, subprocessors unnamed — with a ten-year retention obligation attached to data held abroad.

3 — EU hosting offered while the contracting entity is non-EU, or the subprocessor list is absent.

5 — EU hosting as standard and an EU contracting entity, but parts of the chain — OCR, AI categorisation, support tooling — are non-EU without an explained safeguard.

8 — EU or German hosting on named infrastructure, EU contracting entity, full subprocessor list published, and a stated export that satisfies retention if the contract ends.

10 — Sovereign and durable: German or EU hosting throughout, every subprocessor European, certification published, and a documented archive export that keeps the customer compliant for the full retention period after they leave.

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The Auditor

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. 1 2 12

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Pricing transparency not rated — the vendor publishes no price

How this is scored

Whether a business can compute the real annual invoice — including the bookings, users, bank accounts and adviser access they actually need — from public pages alone.

0 — No public prices at all; every tier is a sales conversation.

3 — A headline monthly price exists, but booking or document limits, extra users or the tier where DATEV export begins are unstated.

5 — Tier prices public with billing period stated and the main limits given, but at least one commonly needed piece (DATEV export, extra bank accounts, adviser seat) sits in an unpriced tier.

8 — Every tier and add-on priced publicly with limits, overage, minimum term and VAT treatment stated; adviser access priced or explicitly free.

10 — Complete price computability: annual invoice derivable for a given transaction volume, user count and feature set, including overage and the year-end extras.

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The Auditor

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. 1 12

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European sovereignty — proven facts

0 of 4 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Ownership Not determined — uncited Report an error
Data residency Not determined — uncited Report an error
Subprocessors Not determined — uncited Report an error

Where this could be wrong

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

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Sources (12)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

  1. 1 Imprint www.lexware.de Checked 15 Sep 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Privacy policy www.lexware.de Checked 15 Sep 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Bookkeeping core — found from sitemap help.lexware.de Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Bookkeeping core — found from sitemap help.lexware.de Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  5. 5 GoBD, immutability & audit — found from sitemap help.lexware.de Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  6. 6 GoBD, immutability & audit — found from sitemap help.lexware.de Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  7. 7 Tax handling & filings — found from sitemap help.lexware.de Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  8. 8 Tax handling & filings — found from sitemap help.lexware.de Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  9. 9 Receipts, banking & matching — found from sitemap help.lexware.de Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  10. 10 Receipts, banking & matching — found from sitemap help.lexware.de Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  11. 11 Tax adviser handoff — found from sitemap help.lexware.de Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  12. 12 Tax adviser handoff — found from sitemap help.lexware.de Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →