Amazon seller accounting software in Germany: what to look for

As an Amazon seller in Germany you need accounting software that reads the Amazon VAT Transactions Report (AVTR) and books Amazon fees as expenses. It should derive your VAT and profit from the same figures. How much bookkeeping you must do depends on your legal form, turnover and profit; below the limits, the income surplus statement (EÜR) is usually enough.

Only VAT GPT sends all three returns itself. Of the tools we compare, according to the providers' own pages (checked 3 November 2026), only VAT GPT submits the OSS return itself to the BZSt, plus the VAT advance return and the annual VAT return via ELSTER to the tax office, calculated from your Amazon and eBay reports. You do not have to go into Mein ELSTER or the BZStOnline portal yourself. With the others, you upload the OSS file in the BZStOnline portal yourself, or a tax adviser or the provider's service files it for you. Sending needs Pro. OSS software compared

Last updated: 29 October 2026

In short

Data source: According to Amazon, the AVTR is ready on the third day of the next month.
Profit: Without a bookkeeping duty, profit is the surplus of business income over business expenses (§ 4 (3) EStG).
Retention: Accounting vouchers eight years, books and records ten years (§ 147 (3) AO).

What must my accounting software do?

That depends on what you have to file and keep. The overview:

Task	What the law requires
Record sales	Records to establish the tax; consideration is to be shown separately by tax rate and tax-exempt sales (§ 22 (1) and (2) UStG)
Advance VAT return	Electronically by the tenth day after the end of the advance return period (§ 18 (1) UStG)
Determine profit	EÜR or books, depending on legal form and size (§ 4 (3) EStG, §§ 140, 141 AO); details in the section Books or EÜR
Keep records	Accounting vouchers eight years, books and records ten years (§ 147 (3) AO)

The advance return period is the calendar quarter. If the previous year's tax was more than €9,000, it is the calendar month (§ 18 (2) UStG). Your software should handle both rhythms. On the EÜR: EÜR template: preparing and sending the income surplus statement in ELSTER.

What this means for you: Match the software against the tasks in the table, not against its feature list.

Do I need books or is the EÜR enough?

That depends on legal form and size:

Sole traders and GbR: you keep books if you have more than €800,000 total turnover or more than €80,000 profit and the tax office notifies you (§ 141 AO). Below that the EÜR is enough (§ 4 (3) EStG).
Sole traders who are merchants (Einzelkaufleute) above the § 241a HGB values: they keep books even without a tax office notice (§ 140 AO, § 238 HGB).
OHG, KG, GmbH and UG: they always keep books (§ 140 AO, § 238 HGB).

As a sole trader who is a merchant (Einzelkaufmann), under § 241a HGB you do not need to apply §§ 238 to 241 HGB if two conditions are met on the balance sheet dates of two consecutive financial years. You showed each time:

no more than €800,000 in revenue
no more than €80,000 in annual profit

Whether that applies to you is a question for your tax adviser.

What this means for you: Ask your tax adviser whether the EÜR is enough for you or whether you must keep books.

Which Amazon data do I need? The transactions report

The figures of your Amazon sales are in the Amazon VAT Transactions Report (AVTR). According to Amazon it contains sales, refunds, returns, inbound shipments and Amazon service fees on the European marketplaces. Your software should be able to do this with it:

Import: You download the report in Seller Central as CSV or TXT. A single report covers at most 93 consecutive days; for longer periods you create several reports.
The right month: According to Amazon, an order placed on 31 January and shipped on 1 February appears in the February report. The software must follow the completion date, not the order date.
Fees as expenses: Fees are business expenses, not sales. In the report they are rows with SALES_CHANNEL = AMAZON_FEE and appear in the following month's report.
Several countries: The report covers European marketplaces, including amazon.de, amazon.fr, amazon.it and amazon.es. The software has to separate sales by country so that you report Germany and the EU (OSS) correctly.
Spotting gaps: If VAT values are missing, Amazon's VAT Calculation Service (VCS) may not be active; it does not fill in data for the past.

Amazon itself points out that you are responsible for the accuracy of the data you use for reports and tax purposes. How to build the advance return from the report is explained in Amazon VAT Transactions Report (AVTR): advance VAT return, the OSS side in Amazon OSS VAT: threshold, VAT ID number, reporting.

What this means for you: Make sure the software reads the Amazon VAT Transactions Report directly.

What do I look for when choosing the software?

These questions help you compare programs, without naming any:

Amazon import: Does the software read the transactions report directly, or do you retype figures and build spreadsheets?
Fee booking: Do Amazon fees automatically land as expenses in your figures?
VAT: Does the software prepare the advance VAT return and the annual return and send them via ELSTER, or must you carry the values into a second program?
EÜR and returns: Do the EÜR, trade tax and income tax returns come from the same figures?
Export for your tax adviser: Does the software output receipts and bookings, for example as a DATEV file?
Price for sending: Some programs only calculate, others also send. Ask for the price of exactly the returns you file.
Record keeping: During the retention period the data must be available at any time, made readable without delay and machine-analysable (§ 147 (2) AO). Check how you get your data out if you change software.

Whether you must keep books, whether you are a small business owner and which accounts your tax adviser uses is not something the software decides for you.

What this means for you: Use the questions to compare programs, and ask which format your tax adviser needs.

Which mistakes happen often?

Counting fees as sales. Amazon fees are expenses; booked as sales, your turnover comes out too high.
Booking by order date. Amazon assigns by completion date; a sale counts for the month of shipping.
Mixing up the fee month. Fees of one month appear in the following month's report.
Requesting more than 93 days in one report. That does not work; create several reports.
Not keeping records. Accounting vouchers are to be kept eight years, books and records ten years (§ 147 (3) AO); the period starts at the end of the calendar year in which the voucher arose (§ 147 (4) AO).
Choosing software by price. If VAT or the EÜR is missing, you need a second program.

What this means for you: Do not count fees as sales and do not book by order date.

How VAT GPT helps

VAT GPT is the tax software for online sellers, freelancers and small businesses in Germany. It calculates and files in one place, in this order:

your OSS return
VAT
EÜR
trade tax
income tax

You sell on Amazon and want VAT, EÜR and tax returns from one account? You work with VAT GPT in three steps:

Upload: your Amazon transactions report as CSV and your invoices. The AI reads amounts, countries and tax rates; VAT GPT breaks down the VAT for Germany and the EU (OSS). VAT GPT books Amazon fee rows as expenses.
Check: You check and confirm the values. VAT GPT assigns your income and expenses to categories and shows your profit or loss for each period.
Send: with VAT GPT Pro via ELSTER to the tax office: advance VAT return (monthly or quarterly), annual VAT return, EÜR, trade tax and income tax returns.

The OSS return and e-invoices in the ZUGFeRD and XRechnung formats come on top. For your tax adviser there is a data export in the settings: receipts as original files by year, quarter and month, overview tables as CSV and a DATEV posting batch file; the account assignment is a suggestion that you agree with your tax adviser. There is Free (basic features, free of charge), Go (30 days free with all Pro features) and Pro. Sending to ELSTER is part of Pro. Try for Free Now

Frequently asked questions

Do I need accounting software as an Amazon seller? Not necessarily, but with many transactions it pays off: the transactions report delivers many rows that you can hardly process by hand. By law you must keep records to establish your VAT (§ 22 UStG).

Which bookkeeping is mandatory for Amazon sellers? As a sole trader or GbR the EÜR is enough (§ 4 (3) EStG) until the tax office notifies you of the duty to keep books after more than €800,000 total turnover or more than €80,000 profit (§ 141 AO). Sole traders who are merchants above the § 241a HGB values keep books even without that notice, OHG, KG, GmbH and UG always (§ 140 AO, § 238 HGB).

Which software do I need as an Amazon seller? One that reads the transactions report, books fees as expenses and works out VAT and profit from the same figures. The checklist is in the section on choosing software above.

Is Excel enough for Amazon bookkeeping? The law does not prescribe a program. It requires records to establish the tax (§ 22 UStG) and data you can make readable and analyse during the retention period (§ 147 (2) AO). A record must also not be changed in a way that the original content can no longer be seen (§ 146 (4) AO); a spreadsheet in which you overwrite values without a trace does not meet that by itself. With many report rows a spreadsheet gets tedious fast.

Where do I get the Amazon transactions report? In Seller Central under Reports, Fulfilment by Amazon, in the Tax section, Amazon VAT Transactions Report (as the German interface names it). You choose the period (at most 93 days) and request the download as CSV or TXT.

When is the transactions report available? According to Amazon on the third day of the following month. The report for December 2025, for example, was available on 3 January 2026.

How long must I keep records? Accounting vouchers eight years, books and records ten years, other documents six years (§ 147 (3) AO). The period starts at the end of the calendar year in which the voucher arose (§ 147 (4) AO).

Can I do the bookkeeping for Amazon for free? VAT GPT has a Free plan for the basic features; sending the advance VAT return, EÜR and tax returns via ELSTER belongs to Pro, and with Go you use Pro free of charge for 30 days.

Can I hand the data to my tax adviser? Yes: VAT GPT has a data export with a DATEV posting batch file; the account assignment is a suggestion that you agree with your tax adviser.