Häufig gestellte Fragen
Is DATEV Mittelstand being discontinued, and from when?
DATEV has not announced a blanket end-of-life date for the entire Mittelstand line, but is pursuing a cloud strategy under which individual on-premises products are being phased out step by step. Specifically discontinued are DATEV Mittelstand Faktura (without the accounting component, article no. 93600) and the ITU variant (93500) as of 31 December 2026; development, maintenance and support end on that date, and the associated contract for DATEV Unternehmen online is terminated as well. DATEV positions the cloud application DATEV Auftragswesen next as the successor, while the packages that include the accounting solution (compact, Standard, pro) are explicitly not affected by this discontinuation and continue to be maintained. Anyone running DATEV Mittelstand should therefore first check which variant is in use and then plan the migration path strategically rather than in haste.
Can we keep working with our DATEV tax advisor despite the switch?
Yes — collaboration with your DATEV tax firm continues even after a switch to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central or Sage 100, since both target systems can hand over journal entries, master data and document images to the firm in DATEV format. With Business Central this works via Microsoft-certified DATEV interfaces from specialised third-party providers (such as SNC DATEV, SIEVERS-GROUP or 365Performance), which export the data to DATEV pro or DATEV CSV format. With Sage 100, the DATEV or DATEV Unternehmen online connection is available and can be extended with an add-on module for document and image transfer. The key point is that only the source system changes — the document handover to the DATEV firm software continues, but the chart of accounts and posting keys should be coordinated with the firm early on.
What does a switch from DATEV Mittelstand to Business Central or Sage 100 cost?
Total costs depend heavily on company size, number of users, desired modules and migration effort, and cannot be quantified across the board. As a rough guide, small projects (10–50 employees) often land in the low six-figure range, and mid-sized migrations (50–150 employees) in the mid six-figure range. On the licence side, Business Central Premium is around 95 euros per user per month at the EUR list price (Microsoft cut euro prices by about 7.4 per cent as of 1 February 2026; Essentials is around 69 euros), while Sage 100 is billed modularly and per main user usually lands in the low three-figure euro range. Always obtain binding quotes from several implementation partners based on a documented requirements document, as Sage does not publish a complete price list.
Business Central or Sage 100 — which system is the better fit after DATEV Mittelstand?
Both systems preserve the DATEV connection but differ in profile and orientation. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is cloud-native and plays to its strengths above all when a Microsoft stack with Microsoft 365, Teams and Power BI is growing anyway, and offers a broad partner landscape with Essentials and Premium (Premium adds manufacturing and service management to Essentials). Sage 100 is traditionally strongly anchored in the DACH mid-market — Sage cites around 250,000 mid-market customers in the region — and appeals to companies that prefer a familiar, modular solution with close ties to accounting and the tax advisor. Which option fits better should be decided based on growth outlook, existing IT landscape and industry requirements, not on price alone.
How long do we have to retain the old DATEV system after the migration?
The decisive factors are the retention periods under commercial and tax law, not the ERP product itself. Through the Fourth Bureaucracy Relief Act (BEG IV), the retention period for accounting records such as invoices was shortened from ten to eight years as of 1 January 2025; for commercial books, inventories, annual financial statements and comparable documents, ten years still apply. Because GoBD requires machine-readable, unalterable and traceable archiving, a pure data export is generally not sufficient — the usual approach is to keep the old DATEV system running as a read-only archive or to transfer the data to a GoBD-compliant archive. Clarify the transition licence needed for this with DATEV early on and document the switch in your process documentation (Verfahrensdokumentation).
How long does a typical switch from DATEV Mittelstand take?
For typical mid-market migrations, you should plan around five to eight months in total, depending on company size, data complexity and the number of interfaces to be connected. The process breaks down roughly into assessment and requirements analysis, partner and licence selection, configuration including setup of the DATEV connector, data migration of master data and open items, a test phase involving the tax advisor, and the final cutover with hypercare. Small projects with 10–50 employees tend towards four to six months, larger ones with 150–300 employees towards eight to twelve months. Experience shows that thorough master data cleansing before the migration and involving the tax advisor early noticeably shorten the project duration.