Accounting · head to head
DATEV vs Medius Expense
DATEV
Accounting
German accounting, payroll and tax software built around the tax adviser rather than the business
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
Medius Expense
Accounting
Expense management, formerly Expensya, now the expense module of the Medius spend platform
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: 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.; Medius Expense the Expensya name is being retired, so contracts, logins and support articles change identity mid-relationship and internal documentation has to be rewritten.
- They diverge on capability: DATEV covers Unternehmen online, Medius Expense covers Receipt OCR.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which DATEV and Medius Expense actually diverge.
| Attribute | DATEV | Medius Expense |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | Windows, Web | Web, iOS, Android |
Identical on both: starting price (On request), pricing model (quote), 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 DATEV
- Unternehmen online
- Lohn und Gehalt
- Rechnungswesen
- Jahresabschluss
- DATEV DMS
- Meine Steuern
- DATEV-Schnittstelle
Only in Medius Expense
- Receipt OCR
- Mileage and per diem
- VAT recovery
- Card reconciliation
- Approval workflows
- AP suite integration
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
DATEV
- A German GmbH that wants its Steuerberater to keep doing the books but wants receipts to stop travelling in a shoeboxnot Medius Expense
- A payroll department that must file social insurance and wage tax returns to German statutory deadlines without an external bureaunot Medius Expense
- An SME preparing an e-Bilanz and audit-ready GoBD document archivenot Medius Expense
- A tax firm standardising dozens of client engagements on one chart of accounts and one document workflownot Medius Expense
Medius Expense
- A French or Spanish employer needing VAT-compliant receipt capture in local formats and languagesnot DATEV
- A company already running Medius for supplier invoices that wants employee spend on the same platformnot DATEV
- A finance team with heavy mileage claims needing statutory rates applied without spreadsheetsnot DATEV
- A group consolidating several country expense tools into one European platformnot DATEV
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
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.
Medius Expense
- The Expensya name is being retired, so contracts, logins and support articles change identity mid-relationship and internal documentation has to be rewritten.
- It is now a module inside an accounts payable suite, so expense-specific roadmap items compete with supplier invoice work for engineering time.
- Pricing is not published and is discounted against bundling with Medius AP, which makes standalone expense quotes less competitive than they look.
- Strength is concentrated in Europe and the Maghreb; North American and Asian tax and mileage handling are thinner than the European coverage.
- It does not issue cards, so real-time spend controls are absent and it relies on card feed reconciliation after the fact.
Pricing, plan by plan
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$undefined/month
- German payroll runs and statutory electronic filings
- Priced by number of payslips
- Typically operated by the adviser on the client's behalf
Medius Expense
On request- Medius Expense$undefined/year
- Per-user subscription, quoted not published
- Tiering by feature set and entity count
- Implementation and OCR configuration fees
Which should you pick?
Choose DATEV if
- You need unternehmen online.
- You work on Windows, Web.
- You also want lohn und gehalt.
Choose Medius Expense if
- You need receipt ocr.
- You work on Web, iOS, Android.
- You also want mileage and per diem.
Questions people ask
- Is DATEV or Medius Expense better?
- Neither clearly leads. DATEV starts at On request and Medius Expense at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, DATEV or Medius Expense?
- DATEV starts at On request and Medius Expense at On request.
- Does DATEV or Medius Expense run on more platforms?
- DATEV runs on Windows, Web. Medius Expense runs on Web, iOS, Android.
- What is DATEV best used for?
- DATEV is most often used for a german gmbh that wants its steuerberater to keep doing the books but wants receipts to stop travelling in a shoebox, a payroll department that must file social insurance and wage tax returns to german statutory deadlines without an external bureau, an sme preparing an e-bilanz and audit-ready gobd document archive, a tax firm standardising dozens of client engagements on one chart of accounts and one document workflow. Of those, a german gmbh that wants its steuerberater to keep doing the books but wants receipts to stop travelling in a shoebox and a payroll department that must file social insurance and wage tax returns to german statutory deadlines without an external bureau are not what Medius Expense is typically brought in for.
- What can DATEV do that Medius Expense cannot?
- DATEV covers Unternehmen online, Lohn und Gehalt, Rechnungswesen, Jahresabschluss. Medius Expense covers Receipt OCR, Mileage and per diem, VAT recovery, Card reconciliation.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
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.
Medius Expense: Is Expensya still available?
Under that name, no. The product continues as Medius Expense, with the branding cutover on 30 September 2026 and no change to features or data.
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.
Medius Expense: Do I have to buy Medius AP as well?
No, but the commercial terms improve materially if you do, which is worth testing during negotiation.
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.
Medius Expense: Does it issue corporate cards?
No. It reconciles existing card feeds rather than issuing its own cards.
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.
Related pages
More on Medius Expense
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