You should generally avoid any cash payment in your company. If it cannot be avoided in exceptional situations (for example with entertainment costs), you can transfer the amount from your Kontist account to your private account promptly. So you have generated an outgoing transaction, for which you can upload the corresponding receipt.

Offered by Kontist Steuerberatungsgesellschafts mbH

Ongoing Accounting

Q: Clear separation between private and business

Please consistently separate your private and business expenses.

Q: Kontist for business expenses

Use your Kontist account for all business income and expenses. This also applies to all expenses that are only partially business-related, such as cell phone contracts, internet contracts, leasing rates or similar. Exceptions are rent payments for your home office in your own apartment.

Q: All private expenses via your private account

All private expenses like weekly purchases, rent payments, vacation trips etc. should be paid via a private account. If you don't have enough money in your private account, you can transfer money from your Kontist account to your private account at any time.

Q: Mark private transactions as "private"

Please categorize all private transactions in your Kontist account (e.g. private withdrawals) as "private".

Q: No Second Business Account

You shouldn't have a second business account in addition to your Kontist account. This also applies to credit card accounts, PayPal or other payment service providers. You should use the Kontist account for all business income and expenses.

We take over your accounting from now on. Kontist Steuerberatung does not work with Lexoffice or DATEV but we work directly in the Kontist App, which is provided to us by Kontist GmbH. So we do not take over the bookings in your Lexoffice account or in any other accounting tool.

English captions are available in this video.

We take over the entire bookkeeping and you get all evaluations, Advance VAT Returns and summary reports directly in your Kontist app. However, you will need a tool to write your invoices. If you use Lexoffice, Debitoor or a similar software, you can choose a smaller package and downgrade. If you are not yet using a tool to write invoices, we recommend Lexoffice: www.lexoffice.de/kontist

Basic Rules for Daily Collaboration

In order for us to guarantee you the most up-to-date accounting possible, we need your support. Please adhere to the following rules to ensure the smoothest possible cooperation:

Clear separation between private and business

Kontist for business expenses

All private expenses via your private account

Mark private transactions as "private"

No Second Business Account

Invoices and Receipts

For every business transaction you need to upload a receipt in your account. Please upload the receipt in your Kontist app as soon as possible. Depending on how you get your invoices, you can do it with either mobile app or web app.

No Cash Payments

Ongoing Accounting

As soon as we have received all business income and expenses and all receipts, we can start the accounting. You can see the status of your bookkeeping in real time when transactions are marked as "Verified by Kontist Steuerservice".

In the transaction display you can always see how we have categorized the corresponding transaction. You can see the applied VAT rate as well the accounting category (Elster-Category).

IMPORTANT: This label is a software suggestionl and not a final booking. Before the advance VAT return is sent to the tax office, all bookings are checked again by our accounting team.

If you were a Kontist Premium customer before, you know the possibility to re-categorize the bookings. This option is not available for Kontist tax service customers. Since we take legal responsibility for bookkeeping and advance VAT returns, you do not have the possibility to change bookings. If you have any questions or comments about specific bookings, you can always send us a message in every booking.

Advance VAT Returns

We prepare your advance VAT Return in time for the deadline. You can view your estimated payment load at any time in your Kontist app under the "VAT" tab.

On the due date, we will send the advance return to the Tax Office and send you an email with the Tax refund or payment. Then you must transfer this amount to the Tax Office within 3 days.

You can also leave a direct debit mandate with the Tax Office. Then the Tax Office will debit the amount from your account and you don't have to do anything. If you want to do this, we will be happy to help. Just write us a short message in the Kontist app or give us a short call.

The VAT due date is always on the 10th of the following month after the pre-registration period valid for you (monthly or quarterly). Exception: If the 10th falls on a weekend or public holiday, the advance VAT return must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. on the following working day. Example: January 10, 2021 was a Sunday, so the advance VAT return for December 2020 is not due until January 11, 2021.

Business Evaluations (BWA) & Proof of Income

We will be happy to provide you with a BWA or other Proof of Income upon request. Unfortunately, you currently can not find these monthly reports directly in the Kontist app yet.

Please send us a short message or give us a call and we will prepare your reports.

Annual Accounting Work

In addition to the ongoing monthly bookkeeping, there are some bookkeeping activities that we perform once a year when preparing the annual financial statements and tax returns.

These activities usually do not have a (major) influence on the advance VAT returns, but can make a big difference in income tax.

Activities include:

Depreciation of fixed assets

Consideration of the home-office

Consideration of additional meal expenses

Cash expenses

Adjustments when taking the company car into account

You can find more information on Annual Financial Statements and Tax returns here: Yearly Financial Statements and Tax Return

Data from Previous Months

If you only switched to Kontist in the current year, you will of course still have accounting data from other accounts, other accounting tools and possibly from your previous tax advisor.

Please send us the following documents steuern@kontist.com:

All documents (incoming and outgoing invoices, receipts, etc.)

Account statements (ideally as CSV files) of all transactions

Information on your fixed assets (including previous depreciation period)

Alternatively, you can also provide us all documents in a Google Drive folder. In this case, please write us a short message beforehand so that we can provide you with a link.

*We indicate that the services of Kontist Steuerberatung are conducted by Kontist Steuerberatungsgesellschaft mbH. Support in tax-related topics such as machine-aided bookkeeping is provided by Kontist Service GmbH. Kontist does not offer support in tax-related topics nor tax advisory services, but conveys these services between you and our partners Kontist Steuerberatungsgellschaft mbH and Kontist Service GmbH. Please find our Terms & Conditions here.