Kontist: The Qonto alternative for busy freelancers

Kontist is a Berlin-based fintech company founded in 2016, specializing in digital banking solutions for freelancers and self-employed professionals in Germany. Operating in partnership with Solaris SE, a licensed German bank, Kontist provides business bank accounts that integrate seamlessly with bookkeeping and automated tax management tools.

Qonto is a Paris-based fintech company founded in 2016. It offers an all-in-one digital banking platform tailored for freelancers, startups, and small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across Europe. Qonto provides business accounts with local IBANs, physical and virtual Mastercards, and tools for invoicing, expense management, and bookkeeping. The platform also offers features like real-time transaction tracking and integrations with accounting software.

Kontist can send your VAT declaration to the tax office for you and prepare a business evaluation (Betriebswirtschaftliche Auswertung) for you, but can not do your yearly tax declaration. However, the app does provide convenient exports, so you can have the documents ready for your tax advisor with just a few clicks.

Sending your VAT declaration to the tax office is included in the Bookkeeping plan. There is no additional charge for this service.

When you open a Kontist account, your income tax rate is set to a default. But to make a more accurate calculation, use our Taxator Tool. With just a few simple answers, we’ll calculate your average income tax rate for the year. 

You can then enter your average income tax rate in the app settings. Once you’ve done so, Kontist will automatically set aside the amount you’ll need for your income tax later on. So you always know what belongs to you. You can adjust this at any time if your income changes over the course of the year.

For your VAT, the Kontist app automatically sets aside the standard 19% for your incoming transactions. You can of course adjust the rate for each transaction or deactivate it in the settings if you don’t collect VAT at all.