Automating Accounting: The Guide for Mid-Sized Companies

The back office as a bottleneck in mid-sized companies

In many mid-sized companies, accounting is still a largely manual process. Incoming invoices are typed into the software by hand, receipts are sorted physically, and the monthly DATEV export is a major effort that regularly eats up two working days.

The problem: this manual work is not only time-consuming, it is also error-prone. A study by the DIHK (German Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 2025) shows that mid-sized companies have to correct 3.2 percent of all postings after the fact on average — because typos happen, receipts are assigned incorrectly or deadlines are missed.

Automating accounting does not mean replacing your tax advisor. It means that routine tasks such as capturing receipts, assigning accounts and transferring data run automatically — faster, error-free and around the clock.

Which accounting processes can be automated?

Not every accounting task is suited to automation. The following five areas offer the greatest leverage in mid-sized companies:

1. Capture and post incoming invoices Invoices that arrive by email or post are read automatically using OCR (optical character recognition). Invoice number, amount, VAT ID and due date are recognised and transferred to your accounting software. The AI suggests the appropriate cost centre and forwards the invoice for digital approval.
2. Create and send outgoing invoices As soon as an order is marked as completed, the system automatically creates the invoice in your corporate design, sends it by email and monitors the incoming payment. If payment is not received, a multi-stage reminder sequence starts automatically.
3. Digitise receipt capture Paper receipts are captured with a smartphone photo or a scanner and automatically assigned to the right transaction. Entertainment receipts, fuel receipts, hotel invoices — everything is categorised automatically and archived in line with GoBD (German bookkeeping rules).
4. Automate the DATEV export At the end of the month, all postings are exported automatically in DATEV format and made available to your tax advisor. No manual preparation, no sending files back and forth. Your tax advisor accesses the finished data directly.
5. Dunning and payment monitoring The system automatically monitors all open items, reconciles incoming payments and, when a payment deadline is exceeded, creates payment reminders in three stages — friendly, firm, formal. You keep an overview of your liquidity at all times.

The best tools for automated accounting

There are now mature solutions for mid-sized companies that can be introduced without major IT effort:

LexOffice

The most popular cloud accounting solution for small and mid-sized businesses in Germany. LexOffice offers automatic receipt recognition, bank reconciliation and a native DATEV interface. It is particularly strong at automatic account assignment: the AI learns from your previous postings and becomes more accurate over time. From €7.90 per month. How this solution can be wired up in practice is shown in a concrete example: Automating LexOffice.

sevDesk

An alternative to LexOffice with strengths in quote and invoice creation. sevDesk also offers OCR receipt recognition and DATEV export. Particularly suitable for companies that want to combine quoting and accounting in one tool. From €8.90 per month.

DATEV Unternehmen Online

For companies that work closely with their tax advisor and do not want to leave the DATEV workflow. Receipts are captured digitally and made available to the tax advisor automatically. It is less intuitive to use than LexOffice or sevDesk, but integration into the DATEV world is seamless.

Make as the connecting layer

Make (formerly Integromat) connects your accounting software with all your other systems: CRM, email, project management, bank accounts. This creates end-to-end workflows — for example: when a deal is won in Pipedrive, LexOffice automatically creates the invoice and sends it to the customer.

Practical example: automated invoice workflow

This is what a fully automated invoice process looks like in practice:

1. Receive the incoming invoice by email An invoice arrives in your central invoice mailbox. Make detects the new email automatically and extracts the PDF attachment.
2. OCR recognition and data extraction The invoice is read automatically: supplier, invoice number, net amount, VAT, due date. The recognition rate of modern OCR systems is 95+ percent.
3. Automatic account assignment and allocation Based on the supplier and the invoice history, the appropriate cost centre is suggested automatically. Recurring suppliers are assigned correctly 100 percent of the time after the third transaction.
4. Digital approval The responsible employee receives a notification (email or Slack) with all relevant data and can approve or reject the invoice with one click. For amounts below a defined threshold, approval happens automatically.
5. Posting and archiving After approval, the invoice is posted automatically in LexOffice or sevDesk, the payment is scheduled and the receipt is archived in line with GoBD. At the end of the month, everything flows automatically into the DATEV export.

Costs vs. savings: the numbers add up

Here is a realistic calculation for a company with 150 incoming invoices and 80 outgoing invoices per month:

On top of that comes the hard-to-quantify but real benefit of fewer errors: fewer correction postings, no forgotten payment reminders and always up-to-date financial data for your decisions.

GDPR aspects of accounting automation

Accounting data is sensitive — so the GDPR compliance of your automation matters accordingly. Keep these points in mind:

• Hosting in Germany/EU: Choose providers that store their data in German or European data centres. LexOffice, sevDesk and DATEV meet this criterion. For Make, we recommend the EU instance.
• Data processing agreements (DPAs): Sign a DPA with every tool provider. Reputable providers supply these as standard — often available directly in the settings.
• GoBD compliance: Your automated accounting solution must meet the German principles of proper bookkeeping and record retention (GoBD). That means: audit-proof archiving, complete traceability and immutability of receipts.
• Access rights and deletion concept: Define clearly who can access accounting data, and implement a deletion concept for when the statutory retention periods expire (generally 10 years for accounting records).

Frequently asked questions