Accounting · head to head
BlackLine vs DATEV
BlackLine
Accounting
Close automation that sits on top of your ERP, covering reconciliations, journals and close task control
- From
- $29/month
- Rated
- -
DATEV
Accounting
German accounting, payroll and tax software built around the tax adviser rather than the business
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: BlackLine it sits on top of the ERP rather than replacing anything, so it is an additional annual platform cost against a general ledger you are already paying for, and the return has to come from reduced close effort and audit findings rather than from retiring another system.; 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: BlackLine covers Account reconciliation, DATEV covers Unternehmen online.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which BlackLine and DATEV actually diverge.
Identical on both: free tier (No), 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 BlackLine
- Account reconciliation
- Risk based certification
- Journal entry management
- Close task management
- Transaction matching
- Intercompany
- Variance analysis
- Evidence attachment
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.
BlackLine
- A listed company whose external auditors have raised findings about reconciliation evidence and reviewer sign offnot DATEV
- A group with dozens of entities where the close depends on someone chasing spreadsheets by email every monthnot DATEV
- A finance team matching very high volumes of bank or payment processor transactions that no longer fit in a workbooknot DATEV
- An organisation trying to shorten a close that runs past working day ten and cannot see where the time goesnot DATEV
DATEV
- A German GmbH that wants its Steuerberater to keep doing the books but wants receipts to stop travelling in a shoeboxnot BlackLine
- A payroll department that must file social insurance and wage tax returns to German statutory deadlines without an external bureaunot BlackLine
- An SME preparing an e-Bilanz and audit-ready GoBD document archivenot BlackLine
- A tax firm standardising dozens of client engagements on one chart of accounts and one document workflownot BlackLine
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
BlackLine
- It sits on top of the ERP rather than replacing anything, so it is an additional annual platform cost against a general ledger you are already paying for, and the return has to come from reduced close effort and audit findings rather than from retiring another system.
- The capability is split across separately licensed modules, so a reconciliation deployment that later needs journal entry, transaction matching and intercompany turns into three more commercial conversations rather than a configuration change.
- Implementation runs for months and is normally partner led, because the value depends on how the account inventory, risk ratings, matching rules and ERP data feeds are configured, and a rushed configuration produces a system that certifies bad reconciliations on schedule.
- The ERP data feeds have to be built and then maintained, so a chart of accounts change, an entity addition or an ERP upgrade turns into remediation work in BlackLine as well, and a broken feed stops the close rather than degrading it.
- Licensing has a per user element and the close involves preparers, reviewers, controllers and auditors, so a finance function with many occasional reviewers pays for seats belonging to people who touch the system for a few days each month.
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
BlackLine
$29/month- EnterpriseFree
- Custom pricing
- Account reconciliation
- Task management
DATEV
On request- DATEV Unternehmen online$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 BlackLine if
- You need account reconciliation.
- You also want risk based certification.
Choose DATEV if
- You need unternehmen online.
- You work on Windows, Web.
- You also want lohn und gehalt.
Questions people ask
- Is BlackLine or DATEV better?
- Neither clearly leads. BlackLine starts at $29/month and DATEV at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, BlackLine or DATEV?
- BlackLine starts at $29/month and DATEV at On request.
- Does BlackLine or DATEV run on more platforms?
- BlackLine runs on Web. DATEV runs on Windows, Web.
- What is BlackLine best used for?
- BlackLine is most often used for a listed company whose external auditors have raised findings about reconciliation evidence and reviewer sign off, a group with dozens of entities where the close depends on someone chasing spreadsheets by email every month, a finance team matching very high volumes of bank or payment processor transactions that no longer fit in a workbook, an organisation trying to shorten a close that runs past working day ten and cannot see where the time goes. Of those, a listed company whose external auditors have raised findings about reconciliation evidence and reviewer sign off and a group with dozens of entities where the close depends on someone chasing spreadsheets by email every month are not what DATEV is typically brought in for.
- What can BlackLine do that DATEV cannot?
- BlackLine covers Account reconciliation, Risk based certification, Journal entry management, Close task management. DATEV covers Unternehmen online, Lohn und Gehalt, Rechnungswesen, Jahresabschluss.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
BlackLine: Does BlackLine replace our ERP or general ledger?
No. It reads from the ledger and writes approved journals back. You keep the ERP and pay for BlackLine on top of it.
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.
BlackLine: At what size does it make sense?
The case is usually driven by control requirements and entity count rather than revenue. Companies under a control regime like Sarbanes Oxley, or groups with many entities and a long close, get the return. A single entity business with a short close will not.
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.
BlackLine: How long does implementation take?
Months rather than weeks for the first module, longer for multi entity rollouts across several modules. The elapsed time is dominated by agreeing the account inventory and building the data feeds, not by installing software.
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.
BlackLine: Will it shorten our close on its own?
No. It makes the close visible and controlled, which is what exposes where the time goes. Shortening it still requires changing the underlying processes, and companies that skip that step get better documentation of the same slow close.
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.
BlackLine: Can our auditors use it directly?
Yes, giving auditors read access to sample reconciliations and approvals is a common deployment pattern and one of the clearer sources of saved effort during the audit.
BlackLine: What happens if our chart of accounts changes?
The account inventory, risk ratings and feed mappings need updating to match. Treat any significant ERP or chart of accounts change as a BlackLine work package in the same project plan.
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