The obligation nobody mentions while you are choosing

Comparisons talk about what a package can do while you use it. The moment that decides how much a package is worth to you tends to be later: an audit, a change of accountant, a move to other software. All four countries in this network oblige you to produce your bookkeeping electronically — and each of them settles the format question differently. One of the four names a format. The other three leave it to whoever is asking.

Germany: the tax authority sets the terms

§ 147(6) of the German Fiscal Code gives the tax authority three options when the records were produced by a data processing system. It may inspect the stored data and use your system to do it, or:

"verlangen, dass die Daten nach ihren Vorgaben maschinell ausgewertet zur Verfügung gestellt werden, oder […] verlangen, dass die Daten nach ihren Vorgaben in einem maschinell auswertbaren Format an sie übertragen werden."

Demand that the data be made available, machine-analysed, according to its specifications — or transmitted to it in a machine-readable format, according to its specifications. The specifications are the authority's, per audit. If your data sits with a third party, the same duties fall on that third party, and the statute adds who pays: "Die Kosten trägt der Steuerpflichtige."

Belgium: the form the officer wants

Belgium puts it even more plainly. Where books, invoices and other documents are kept electronically, the VAT inspector

"heeft […] recht op toegang tot de documenten en heeft hij het recht ze te downloaden en er kopieën van te vragen onder de vorm die hij wenst."

Has a right of access to the documents, and the right to download them and to request copies in the form he wishes. That right rests on article 61, § 2 of the Belgian VAT Code, and it is worth reading twice: the form is chosen by the person asking, not by your software vendor.

Austria: on a data carrier, ready for inspection

Austria approaches it from the retention side. Records kept by computer must be kept in electronic form and be produced when there is an audit:

"Bei EDV-Buchführung oder EDV-Aufzeichnungen sind die Daten in entsprechender elektronischer Form auf Datenträgern aufzubewahren und im Fall einer Prüfung zur Verfügung zu stellen."

Electronic archiving is allowed as long as reproduction stays "vollständig, geordnet, inhaltsgleich und urschriftgetreu" for the whole retention period — complete, ordered, identical in content and faithful to the original. The retention period itself is seven years, and longer in specific cases. The basis given is §§ 131 and 132 of the Bundesabgabenordnung.

The Netherlands: the only one that names a format

The Dutch answer is a file with a name. The audit file (XAF) is the format in which a bookkeeping is handed to an accountant or to the tax administration, and its next version is not optional. The Klankbordgroep Auditfile Financieel, published by the tax administration's own developer-support service:

"Vanaf 1 januari 2027 wordt uitsluitend het formaat XAF 4.0 geaccepteerd voor aanlevering. Oudere versies zijn vanaf die datum niet meer gewenst."

From 1 January 2027 only XAF 4.0 will be accepted; older versions are no longer wanted from that date. Version 4.0 also cuts the number of data fields from 250 to 90 compared with XAF 3.2, which dates from 2014.

Why this cannot be one line on a comparison site

This part is our own reasoning rather than a rule from any authority.

"Can I export my books for my accountant?" looks like one question and is four. There is no European format, no European register and no authority that publishes which packages produce a valid file — so a single network-wide badge for it would be an invention. We therefore record the export capability as a country-specific characteristic, verified per country against that country's own source: for the Netherlands the audit file, and for each further market the format that country's authorities and profession actually use, established when that market launches rather than assumed now.

What you can do while choosing, in any of the four: ask the vendor which format it writes and which version, and ask your accountant which one they read. Both answers are cheap to get before you migrate and expensive to discover afterwards. What we can verify per package is in the comparison, with the vendor page and date behind each value; how we handle a question a vendor does not answer is in the methodology.

Official sources

Read on 8 September 2026. Deadlines and formats change — check the source before you act on it.