German bookkeeping and invoicing software

Hello All,

I recently started a business in Germany and I'm looking for any recommendations on an Accounting, Bookkeeping and Invoicing Software package. I need something that can keep track of customer invoices & payments, vendor invoices & payments, bank accounts, reports (P&L, Sales reports for items, customers, etc.), and MwSt/Elster Formular. It needs to allow multiple people to log in and do various functions at the same time.

My US office uses Quickbooks, which is a great program. There is a German version of it, which we were using, but it's only a starter edition allowing only 360 customers and no multiple logins (and there are no better versions available).

We then switched to Lexware Financial Office Pro, but I'm finding it extraordinarily difficult to use (10 steps for making one customer invoice) and miss the ease of Quickbooks.

Does anyone have any suggestions of other programs to use here in Germany that are easy to use and have all of the required features and won't break the bank?

Thanks for all the help.

KC

You could try these guys: Collmex Buchhaltung Software.

I use their free service for submitting my Mwst. as I have a Mac and the Elster thingy didn't work on a Mac when they made it compulsory to submit Mwst forms online. That works well and as they offered it as a freeby I feel I owe them a plug!

Sage ?

I did also look into Sage, but my main problem with them is that they offer three classes of products and no upgrade path between them. So, if you choose the small business one you can only have a certain number of users (3 I think) and if you ever plan on having more than that you have to buy the bigger one now, because there is no way to transfer all of your data from the small version to the bigger one...

Elster is the standard programme.

DATEV ? Would make cooperation with your tax advisor easier (as many of them use Datev-software). Actually ask your tax-advisor - he might have some experience with software of some of his clients.

It is for tax declaration, not a lot of use for bookkeeping though.

andy M

DATEV is a pain for a small company unless you are using them to do your payroll etc.

andy M

Im not sure what software you are using, but Ive just introduced the German version of quickbooks, which is Lexware Buchhalter, into a society I used to run. It comes in three flavours (normal, "Plus" and "Pro") and we chose Buchhalter Plus because we didnt need the features that the Pro version has, which seem to be exactly what you are looking for. We are pretty happy with the software.

"Financial office" is the big brother and AFAIK is essentially a mini-ERP system rather than just bookkeeping software.

At the moment Lexware have a "try it for 4 weeks" offer going which might be worth a try.

andy "not on a percentage, honest" M

andy ;

I am desperate to find a competent business software programme for a small manufacturing business. Currently we've been managing with GNU cash in English but I am finding that when I want to make small changes with GNU it ends up being a disaster. I am sick of wasting my time with this programme and need something that works better for a small manufacturing business. I've only just heard about Lexware and wondered if there were any further comments on this programme? Our Steuerberater is doing the Lohnbuchhaltung but as he's not so crash hot with English a German programme would be good for him. However, we've got another person who telecommutes off shore who needs access to an English version of the book keeping so anything in German and English would be good.

It doesn't exist. The rules of bookkeeping between different countries as well as the legal requirements and taxation are just too different for it to make sense...

I've worked with two programs of the buhl data range and found them self explanatory and easy to use. I don't know this one but it may be worth looking at:
http://wiso.buhl.de/Kaufmann_Professional_...eibung.BuhlData

The Buhl/Wiso software has a somewhat unusual licensing model: you don't buy the software, you "rent" it for about a year. You have to relicense it every year or it stops working.

Is anyone (in Germany) managing to use a US or UK English language bookkeeping application? Not only would it be good to have software in English for ease of use but also the range of features and choice of platform (Quickbooks for mac) just doesn't seem to exist in Germany. I'd need to work in multiple currencies as well...

See German bookkeeping and invoicing software