DATEV

DATEV is a German IT cooperative headquartered in Nuremberg. Tax advisers founded it in 1966, and it is organised as a registered cooperative (eG) with more than 40,000 members. DATEV states that over 850,000 customers work with its solutions and reports revenue of 1.51 billion euros for 2024. Its core market is the collaboration between tax advisers, auditors, lawyers and the businesses they advise.

Features

• Accounting, payroll and tax software, used by professional firms and by companies.
• Shared data between a business and its tax adviser. This is why many other bookkeeping tools, among them Lexware Office and sevdesk on this page, offer a DATEV export.
• Cloud services for the tax and accounting profession alongside established desktop software.

Limits

DATEV is built around German tax and accounting practice and is aimed at professionals and the companies they work with. For a freelancer who only needs invoices and a simple profit calculation, the lighter tools in this category are usually easier to start with.