Note: Written on the 13th of March, 2024. Consider that features may have changed in the meantime.
As a one man business, a side business actually, I had difficulties managing the complexity of an accountant in Belgium.
While originally my profits were small and I was looking to cut down on costs, I realized I did need assistance with over-complicated finance stuff. Doing international business, both in Europe and other regions, makes it more complicated too. And I learned there are for example different ways to write things off (1st of January vs. actual purchase date) in my case; and even the online tools I evaluated do it (by default) opposite from each other.
But even finding an accountant who was willing to take me on as a customer, proved to be a challenge. Out of all the ones I contacted, I got to visit one – as a courtesy since I went to school with the guy.
I initially meant to investigate the two main (promoted) ones: Accountable and Dexxter. While doing a typical web search, I was presented with a comparison matrix by a third player, CoManage. It wasn’t entirely accurate though; it listed API as a feature for Accountable.
I spend around an equal time playing around with Accountable and Dexxter. I may have missed some features.
There are actually two things which I had in mind as a “MUST”.
- API. I want to be able to integrate my existing applications (which include contact data) and just synchronize this info with the accountancy tool. Spoiler alert: both solutions failed.
- Export of all data. I want to be able to make an offline backup of my data at any given time. Too many applications have changed over time, or have been discontinued, or prices went way up. I want to have the freedom to leave, with all my data, at any given point.
Features
Accountable
Pro:
- When importing invoices (from third parties), there is an OCR feature which tries to prefill as much as possible. Seems to be quite capable, real time-saver!
- A great feature I didn’t consider: bank integration. They can show an overview of the transactions, and they can then be linked to invoices.
- Very good wizards and pro-active suggestions.
- Integration with Mollie.
- Nice timeline and reports.
- Large knowledge base.
Cons:
- No API ( Note: in the comparison matrix by CoManage, it seems it was incorrectly stated there was one ).
- Investments: linear write off by default (so set on 1st of January, which is allowed for my VAT status, and may be beneficial at some point but it’s not what I’m looking to do).
Unknown:
- They’re starting to experiment with AI. Seems to be a chatbot based on their KBs.
- Not enough time to play around with PEPPOL, seemed to be supported.
User base: Unknown. On Google, they have a 4.7 score based on 34 reviews.
Dexxter
Pro:
- Some limited multi-lingual support to create quotes and invoices. Templates are a bit limited though.
- You can maintain a list of your own products.
- Integration with Mollie.
- Feels very snappy.
- Very good wizards and pro-active suggestions.
- Investments: pro rata write off by default (so from purchase date onwards).
- Nice timeline and reports.
- Quite a few exports; but the main one to export all your input is missing documents you upload (e.g. PDF invoices) and only contained CSV files …
- Small community.
- Large knowledge base. Also, the KB is nicely integrated and seems to suggest actually relevant FAQs on each section.
- Ability to enter the expected frequency of certain costs (+ alerts about invoices which may be missing)
- Only lets you go back 1 year since the time of creating your profile. So, if you’re in 2024, you can’t add invoices to year 2022.
Cons:
- There was however no easy way to retrieve any documents I would have uploaded myself.
- No bank integration.
- API has been requested at least since 2021, but is not available.
- No PEPPOL support yet.
- Not able to specify country (only “Belgian”, “European” or “outside of EU”) for a customer.
User base: Their website currently states 4,000+ (which is a growing number the last couple of years). On Google, it scores 4.9 out of 210 reviews. Surprisingly enough, the lowest rating is 4/5.
CoManage
I honestly gave up shortly after signing in. There was a very short welcome video. I played around with the layout, and it was way too busy for me. This did not give me a feel of simplicity – the key thing I’m looking for.
Pricing
Accountable comes in 3 flavors: free (very limited), small and pro. I check nearly all of the boxes of “small”, but I need an IC-listing (with my Europese customers). That’s a “pro” feature. Pay per month, or per year (cheaper).
Dexxter also seems to have different packages (VAT status), but the price seems to be the same for all. Hint: On their own website, they host pages with some partner info. For many of those partners, promo codes are available. Surprisingly enough, they’re different. When writing this article (April 2024), 25% off was the best one I found: Dexxter via YoungOnes – Dexxter
Dexxter is slightly cheaper than the “small” package from Accountable.
Conclusion
In both cases, it’s a shame they do not have an API at this point. This is a huge disappointment. If either one of them would have had this feature, it would most definitely have made the difference.
Both Accountable and Dexxter look very modern. Accountable has a cleaner lay-out (which I prefer), but feels slightly less snappy – however, it doesn’t feel sluggish at all.
With Accountable, I couldn’t choose the start date of my investment; despite a KB article mentioning it could be changed after contacting support (who put me on the wrong track first).
What makes Accountable the better choice?
- Accountable somehow managed to alert me better about my requirement to submit an IC listing of my Europese customers.
- They also allow you to export all your data.
- The platform probably already has PEPPOL support (to investigate).
- Their suggestions to categorize costs, are more intelligent-guess based in combination with wizards.
What makes Dexxter the better choice?
- I really miss product management in Accountable. It’s easy to re-select items when creating invoices.
- The Mollie integration is something I keep in mind for the future. As I have many international customers, Mollie would allow them to pay through a vast majority of services (of course, Mollie is an extra cost). It’s also a payment solution I have considered in the past for a webshop.
- Just a personal preference: pro rata write off (investment).
- In pricing, Dexxter wins.
- Support was faster, and more personal.