English-speaking bookkeeping* in Germany, at a fixed monthly price
German bookkeeping is its own world: GoBD, receipt retention, a split between bookkeepers and tax advisors that exists nowhere else. If you run a business here and your working language is English, that world is hard to enter. I keep your books in order month by month and talk you through it in English, for a price agreed in advance.
Who this is for
Founders, freelancers and small companies based in Germany whose day-to-day language is English. You have a German business, German receipts and German obligations, but you would rather not have the conversation about them in German.
If your business is not established in Germany, this is not the right service. I work with German record-keeping duties, not with foreign ones.
What I do, and where the line runs
German law splits this work in two, and the split is strict. Knowing it saves you a lot of confusion, so here it is plainly.
My work as your bookkeeper
- Recording your ongoing business transactions, including coding your receipts
- Receipt capture and GoBD-compliant digital filing, from the first invoice
- Ongoing payroll, including the monthly payroll tax filings (Lohnsteuer-Anmeldung)
- Monthly key figures (BWA) so you can see whether the numbers work while you can still react
- An open-items list, so you know who still owes you money
- Complete handover of all posting data to your tax advisor, on time
Reserved for your Steuerberater
- Annual financial statements and balance sheets
- Tax returns of any kind, and VAT returns (Umsatzsteuer-Voranmeldung)
- Setting up your bookkeeping and your chart of accounts
- Year-end payroll tax reconciliation
- Any tax advice, including the choice of legal form and the small-business rule
I am a bookkeeper, not a tax advisor, and I do not give tax advice. Your tax advisor and I work hand in hand: they receive every figure they need from me, in time and without chasing.
How it works
- 1
Send your receipts
By photo, upload or forwarded email, whichever fits your week. No sorting, no folders.
- 2
I keep the books
Your transactions are posted in a fixed rhythm. Questions get collected and asked in one go.
- 3
You see where you stand
Monthly figures and an open-items list, in English, with the numbers that actually matter.
- 4
Your tax advisor gets everything
Complete posting data, on time, so nothing is left to sort out at year end.
What I need from you each month
Less than most people expect, and always the same things. We agree the cut-off dates once, at the start, and after that the month runs on its own.
Receipts and bank
Every invoice you issue and every receipt you pay, as they come in rather than in one pile at the end of the year. Photo, upload or a forwarded email is enough, and the German ones do not need translating: reading them is my job. Alongside them I need the statements for every account the business uses, including the payment providers, because a month can only be closed when the bank side matches the receipts.
Payroll, if you have staff
Once, when someone joins: their details and their contract. After that, only what changed this month, so hours, absences, bonuses, anyone starting or leaving. Payroll has the earlier cut-off of the two, because the payroll tax filing is due on the tenth of the following month and your team is paid before that.
Answers, in one go
Some receipts do not explain themselves: what a payment was for, whether a trip was business, who a transfer went to. I collect those and ask them together, in English, usually as a short list once a month rather than a message every time one comes up.
What you never have to do
Sort receipts into folders, name files a particular way, learn what GoBD requires, or speak to the Finanzamt in German. If a deadline is approaching and something is missing, you hear it from me first, in time to do something about it.
Questions people ask first
Can you prepare and file my tax returns?
No. Under German law (§ 6 Abs. 1 Nr. 1 StBerG) tax returns, VAT returns and annual financial statements are reserved for Steuerberater, the German tax advisors. What I do is the ongoing bookkeeping underneath all of that, and I hand your tax advisor complete, reconciled figures on time.
Do I still need a Steuerberater?
Yes, for your annual accounts and your tax returns. Many clients end up paying less in total, because the ongoing bookkeeping is already done when the figures reach the tax advisor and only the reserved work is left for them.
Can we work entirely in English?
Everything between you and me, yes: questions about receipts, monthly figures, calls and email. Your receipts themselves and anything going to the Finanzamt stay in German, and that side is my job, not yours.
What does it cost?
A fixed monthly price, agreed before the first receipt is posted, starting at 49 € a month. It depends on your number of receipts and how many people you have on payroll, and it does not change because a month happened to be busy.
I have just started out. When should bookkeeping begin?
With the first receipt. The German record-keeping and retention rules (GoBD) apply immediately, not from a certain size onwards, and what is filed incorrectly in the first year tends to surface years later during an audit.
A note on language and law
This page is written in English for convenience. The rest of this website, and every legally binding document on it, is in German: the imprint, the privacy policy and the notice on the scope of my services. Where an English wording and the German one differ, the German one applies.
The footnote marked with an asterisk appears at the bottom of every page in German. In substance it says: only the services permitted under § 6 Abs. 1 Nr. 1 of the German Tax Advisory Act (StBerG) are provided, namely the bookkeeping of ongoing business transactions, ongoing payroll including payroll tax filings, and management reporting figures. No tax advice and no legal advice.
The German pages are the fuller ones. If you read German, start at Leistungen or with the rechtliche Hinweise.
Let's talk about your books
A free first call, in English, with no obligation. We look at your receipts and your payroll, and you get your fixed monthly price in writing afterwards.