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Accounting · head to head

Bill.com vs DATEV

Bill.com logo

Bill.com

Accounting

Automate your financial workflows

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
DATEV logo

DATEV

Accounting

German accounting, payroll and tax software built around the tax adviser rather than the business

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Bill.com has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Bill.com limited customization of approval workflows and user permissions for complex business needs; DATEV dATEV does not publish transparent per-customer pricing the way a SaaS vendor does; your real cost is buried in your tax adviser's fee note, so comparing it against Lexware or sevdesk on price is genuinely hard.
  • They diverge on capability: Bill.com covers AP automation, DATEV covers Unternehmen online.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Bill.com and DATEV actually diverge.

Attributes where Bill.com and DATEV differ
AttributeBill.comDATEV
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelUnknownquote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWebWindows, Web
Founded2006Unknown

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Accounting).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Bill.com

  • AP automation
  • AR automation
  • Payment processing
  • Approval workflows
  • Document management
  • Vendor management
  • Cash flow insights
  • Mobile approvals

Only in DATEV

  • Unternehmen online
  • Lohn und Gehalt
  • Rechnungswesen
  • Jahresabschluss
  • DATEV DMS
  • Meine Steuern
  • DATEV-Schnittstelle

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Bill.com

  • Invoice processingnot DATEV
  • Bill paymentsnot DATEV
  • Vendor paymentsnot DATEV
  • Cash flow managementnot DATEV
  • Financial automationnot DATEV

DATEV

  • A German GmbH that wants its Steuerberater to keep doing the books but wants receipts to stop travelling in a shoeboxnot Bill.com
  • A payroll department that must file social insurance and wage tax returns to German statutory deadlines without an external bureaunot Bill.com
  • An SME preparing an e-Bilanz and audit-ready GoBD document archivenot Bill.com
  • A tax firm standardising dozens of client engagements on one chart of accounts and one document workflownot Bill.com

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Bill.com

  • Limited customization of approval workflows and user permissions for complex business needs
  • Limited international payment capabilities compared to specialists like Tipalti
  • Customer support response times are slow, with agents often lacking product expertise

DATEV

  • DATEV does not publish transparent per-customer pricing the way a SaaS vendor does; your real cost is buried in your tax adviser's fee note, so comparing it against Lexware or sevdesk on price is genuinely hard.
  • The board has decided to wind down the Austria-specific portfolio: existing products remain usable to 31 December 2028, are free of charge during 2029, and cannot be used after 31 December 2029, so any Austrian entity on DATEV has a forced migration dated in advance.
  • It is built for German statutory practice, so a group with subsidiaries outside the DACH region will run DATEV for Germany and something else everywhere else, with a consolidation step in between.
  • Large parts of the suite are still Windows desktop software installed on a workstation or terminal server, which means IT overhead most companies no longer budget for when they think they are buying cloud accounting.
  • The lock-in is social as well as technical: because your adviser holds the installation and the history, changing accounting software usually forces you to change or retrain your adviser, which is a far bigger decision than a software migration.

Pricing, plan by plan

Bill.com

Free
  • Essentials$49/month
    • Core AP and AR functionality
    • Manual CSV import/export
  • Team$65/month
    • Automatic 2-way sync with QuickBooks Online, Xero
  • Corporate$89/month
    • Procurement features
    • Custom approval policies
    • Sync with NetSuite, Dynamics

DATEV

On request
  • DATEV Unternehmen online$undefined/month
    • Receipt and bank data exchange with your tax adviser
    • Cash book and master data modules
    • Ordered and usually rebilled through the adviser
  • DATEV Mittelstand$undefined/month
    • In-house financial accounting and invoicing
    • Payroll modules licensed separately
    • Per-workplace licensing
  • Lohn und Gehalt$undefined/month
    • German payroll runs and statutory electronic filings
    • Priced by number of payslips
    • Typically operated by the adviser on the client's behalf

Which should you pick?

Choose Bill.com if

  • You need ap automation.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want ar automation.
Bill.com review

Choose DATEV if

  • You need unternehmen online.
  • You work on Windows, Web.
  • You also want lohn und gehalt.
DATEV review

Questions people ask

Is Bill.com or DATEV better?
Neither clearly leads. Bill.com starts at Free and DATEV at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Bill.com or DATEV?
Bill.com has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Bill.com and On request for DATEV.
Does Bill.com or DATEV run on more platforms?
Bill.com runs on Web. DATEV runs on Windows, Web.
Can I use Bill.com for free?
Yes. Bill.com has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. DATEV starts at On request.
What is Bill.com best used for?
Bill.com is most often used for invoice processing, bill payments, vendor payments, cash flow management. Of those, invoice processing and bill payments are not what DATEV is typically brought in for.
What can Bill.com do that DATEV cannot?
Bill.com covers AP automation, AR automation, Payment processing, Approval workflows. DATEV covers Unternehmen online, Lohn und Gehalt, Rechnungswesen, Jahresabschluss.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Bill.com: What payment methods does Bill.com support?

Bill.com supports ACH transfers, checks, corporate cards, and international transfers. ACH payments cost $0.59 per transaction, checks cost $1.99, and card payments incur a 2.9% fee.

Source
DATEV: Can I buy DATEV directly without a tax adviser?

In practice, no for most of the range. Membership of the cooperative is restricted to the tax and legal professions, and companies get access through their adviser or as a client of one.

Bill.com: Does Bill.com offer a free tier?

Yes. Bill.com offers a free Spend & Expense plan for access to credit lines from $1,000-$5M with corporate cards, budgets, and expense tracking.

Source
DATEV: Is DATEV usable outside Germany?

It operates in Austria, Italy, Spain, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary, but the depth is German. The Austrian product line is being discontinued with a hard end date of 31 December 2029.

Bill.com: Which accounting systems does Bill.com integrate with?

Bill.com integrates with QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Enterprise, Oracle NetSuite, Sage Intacct, Microsoft Dynamics, and Xero, with automatic two-way syncing on most plans.

Source
DATEV: What is the DATEV-Schnittstelle everyone mentions?

It is the standard export format German invoicing and ERP tools produce so bookkeeping data can be handed to a DATEV-based adviser. Supporting it is effectively a requirement to sell accounting-adjacent software in Germany.

DATEV: Does DATEV handle e-invoicing under the German B2B mandate?

Yes, the accounting and invoicing modules were extended for the XRechnung and ZUGFeRD formats that the German B2B e-invoicing rules require.

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