Accounting · head to head
DATEV vs Netvisor
DATEV
Accounting
German accounting, payroll and tax software built around the tax adviser rather than the business
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
Netvisor
Accounting
Finnish cloud accounting and payroll with pricing built from a base fee plus per transaction charges
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Only Netvisor has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- 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.; Netvisor pricing is a base fee plus a charge per sales invoice, per purchase invoice, per payslip and per other transaction, so a company with high document volumes pays a bill that scales with trading activity and cannot be budgeted as a fixed monthly cost.
- They diverge on capability: DATEV covers Unternehmen online, Netvisor covers Finnish general ledger.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which DATEV and Netvisor actually diverge.
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 DATEV
- Unternehmen online
- Lohn und Gehalt
- Rechnungswesen
- Jahresabschluss
- DATEV DMS
- Meine Steuern
- DATEV-Schnittstelle
Only in Netvisor
- Finnish general ledger
- Value added tax reporting
- Bank connections
- Electronic invoicing
- Purchase invoice workflow
- Sales invoicing
- Payroll
- Incomes register reporting
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 Netvisor
- A payroll department that must file social insurance and wage tax returns to German statutory deadlines without an external bureaunot Netvisor
- An SME preparing an e-Bilanz and audit-ready GoBD document archivenot Netvisor
- A tax firm standardising dozens of client engagements on one chart of accounts and one document workflownot Netvisor
Netvisor
- A Finnish company whose accounting firm works in Netvisor and wants the client approving purchase invoices in the same systemnot DATEV
- A Finnish employer needing payroll that handles collective agreement terms and reports to the incomes register on timenot DATEV
- A business receiving and sending structured e-invoices with Finnish counterparties that require themnot DATEV
- A Finnish accounting practice standardising clients on one system with a shared role model rather than one instance per clientnot 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.
Netvisor
- Pricing is a base fee plus a charge per sales invoice, per purchase invoice, per payslip and per other transaction, so a company with high document volumes pays a bill that scales with trading activity and cannot be budgeted as a fixed monthly cost.
- It serves Finland, so the tax and payroll logic is useless to entities filing elsewhere, and a Nordic group ends up running a different system in each country even where they belong to the same corporate family.
- The interface, help material and support operate in Finnish, so a foreign owned subsidiary needs a Finnish speaking bookkeeper or accounting firm to operate it and cannot supervise it directly from head office.
- Finnish payroll requires collective agreement terms to be configured correctly, and getting holiday pay, supplements and shift rules right is specialist work usually done by a partner, so payroll implementation is a paid project rather than a setup wizard.
- Because most deployments come through an accounting firm, the practical service you receive depends on that firm's competence with the product, and changing accountant can mean changing system or inheriting a configuration nobody documented.
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
Netvisor
Free- Starter$25/month
- Basic accounting, 1000 transactions, invoicing, payroll for 1 person
- Basic$25/month
- Basic accounting plus invoicing, 2.06 euros per invoice item, unlimited users, email support
- Core$25/month
- All Basic features, invoices included in monthly cost
- Professional$25/month
- All Core features, broadest software interface, budgeting, reporting, forecasting, purchase and sales orders
Which should you pick?
Choose DATEV if
- You need unternehmen online.
- You work on Windows, Web.
- You also want lohn und gehalt.
Choose Netvisor if
- You need finnish general ledger.
- You want to start without paying.
- You also want value added tax reporting.
Questions people ask
- Is DATEV or Netvisor better?
- Neither clearly leads. DATEV starts at On request and Netvisor at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, DATEV or Netvisor?
- Netvisor has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for DATEV and Free for Netvisor.
- Does DATEV or Netvisor run on more platforms?
- DATEV runs on Windows, Web. Netvisor runs on Web.
- Can I use Netvisor for free?
- Yes. Netvisor has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. DATEV starts at On request.
- 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 Netvisor is typically brought in for.
- What can DATEV do that Netvisor cannot?
- DATEV covers Unternehmen online, Lohn und Gehalt, Rechnungswesen, Jahresabschluss. Netvisor covers Finnish general ledger, Value added tax reporting, Bank connections, Electronic invoicing.
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.
Netvisor: Is Netvisor usable outside Finland?
Not as a compliance system. The value is the Finnish tax, banking, e-invoicing and payroll logic. Companies filing elsewhere should look at the local product in the Visma range or another local vendor.
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.
Netvisor: Why is the pricing structured per transaction?
It reflects a Finnish market convention where the accounting firm's fee also scales with document volume. It means a low volume company pays very little and a high volume one pays a great deal, so estimate your annual invoice and payslip counts before comparing headline prices.
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.
Netvisor: Can my accounting firm work in it with me?
Yes, that is the intended model. The practice and the client share one instance with different roles, so the firm does the bookkeeping while you approve purchase invoices and issue sales invoices.
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.
Netvisor: Does it handle payroll for collective agreements?
It supports Finnish collective agreement based payroll, but configuring the specific agreement terms correctly is expert work normally done during a paid implementation. Do not assume payroll is switched on the same week as accounting.
Netvisor: What about the incomes register?
Reporting earnings to the national incomes register within the statutory deadline is built in, which is one of the main reasons Finnish employers use a local product rather than an international one.
Netvisor: Is it a full ERP?
It includes inventory and fixed assets alongside the ledger, which covers a good deal of a small distributor's needs, but it is a financial management system rather than a manufacturing or full supply chain ERP.
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