Frienton is an intuitive financial management platform for companies that connects banking, bookkeeping, controlling, and tax processes in one system. It gives businesses real-time visibility and control over their finances.

Why should I use Frienton?

Frienton helps companies reduce manual administrative work by automating financial processes. It allows teams to focus on core business activities while maintaining full financial control and transparency.

How do I connect my bank accounts?

You can connect your bank accounts and credit cards directly via the Multibanking section. PayPal accounts can also be integrated in the same way.

How does transaction categorisation work?

Frienton automatically assigns transactions to predefined income and expense categories. You can manually adjust categories, and the system learns your preferences over time to improve future classification.

Can I create custom categories?

Yes. Frienton provides a structured category system aligned with standard accounting frameworks, while allowing you to create custom subcategories for reporting and bookkeeping.

How does Frienton protect my data?

Frienton uses bank-level security including TLS encryption and AES-256 standards. All data is stored on secure German servers and processed in compliance with GDPR regulations.

How is access to banking data handled securely?

Bank data access is provided via a BaFin-certified partner interface in compliance with PSD2 regulations. All credentials are processed securely and never directly handled by Frienton.

What happens if I delete my account?

If you delete your account, all associated data is permanently removed from Frienton and cannot be restored afterwards.

FAQs

Q: How does Frienton work?

Frienton integrates your business bank accounts and financial data into a single platform. Financial processes such as planning, accounting, controlling, and tax reporting are digitally connected and largely automated, giving you real-time financial insights.

Q: Which companies is Frienton suitable for?

Frienton is designed for small and medium-sized enterprises, startups, holding companies, and consultancies that want to fully digitize their financial management and operations.

Q: Which legal forms are supported?

Frienton is optimized for SMEs such as GmbH and UG, and supports most common corporate legal forms including holding structures and other German companies.

Everything you need to know about working with Frienton - your financial operating system

Need a quick answer?

Here we summarise the answers to the most frequently asked questions about Frienton for you:

Help center

In your account you will find our personal help center! Just click on the chat window below and type in a question. Are you in a hurry? Our robo Freddie is ready to answer your questions 24/7. From Monday to Friday between 9:00 and 18:00 Freddie is supported by our diligent service team. We are happy to help you individually and to provide answers to all your questions.

General information

What is Frienton?

Frienton is a Financial Operating System for growing companies in Germany — UGs, GmbHs, AGs, GmbH & Co. KGs and comparable structures with growing finance complexity. The platform connects multi-banking, automated bookkeeping, live financial reporting (cashflow plan-vs-actual, Live-BWA and balance sheet), invoicing with e-invoicing (XRechnung and ZUGFeRD) and payment approval workflows, controlling and tax-related workflows in one continuous structure — the so-called money chain from bank to tax. Frienton is an open platform with native integrations to Stripe, Shopify, Shopware, Amazon, Easybill, Billbee, Chargebee, MOCO and others. Frienton does not replace a tax consultancy: a pre-booked accounting batch is delivered in DATEV or ADDISON format directly to the firm's existing software, with no system switch required on the firm side. Frienton is therefore not a classic bookkeeping tool, not a standalone liquidity tool and not a tax service, but the operating platform behind scalable finance processes. Frienton is developed and operated by Frienton GmbH (Munich, Germany), runs GoBD-compliant on German infrastructure, and connects via PSD2 through the BaFin-licensed Munich-based banking partner finAPI.

Who is Frienton for?

Frienton is built for growing companies in Germany whose finance processes have outgrown single-purpose tools — above all capital companies and comparable structures such as the GmbH & Co. KG. Three core segments are the primary audience: established, profitable service and digital companies such as agencies and consultancies; e-commerce companies with at least one shop on Shopify, Shopware or Amazon; and tech startups and scaleups in or after a funding round. The deciding factor is the complexity of the finance processes — several banks and payment providers, growing document volume, reporting and controlling needs, working with a tax firm — not the legal form. Frienton is not a fit for solo entrepreneurs, charitable organisations, private household finances, or companies already running a full ERP in production.

How does Frienton work?

With Frienton you can integrate all your business banking accounts & financial data on our intuitive & easy to handle platform. The financial processes from planning to banking, accounting, controlling all the way to tax are digitally linked & largely automated.

You always have an up-to-date overview of all your finances as well as current trends and can act immediately in case of deviations.

Learn more about our platform in this comprehensive video (DE): All-in-one digital finance | Our product at a glance.

What does Frienton cost?

Frienton offers three tiers that scale with complexity. Pricing starts from €38 per month. "Essential Cash" covers multi-banking, liquidity management and cashflow reporting. "Smart Bookkeeping" expands the scope with automated bookkeeping, live financial reporting, invoicing, payment management with approval workflows, e-invoicing and the tax interface to DATEV and ADDISON. "Professional Tax" further covers — through Frienton premium-partner tax firms — full financial bookkeeping, year-end preparation and tax-firm access; the Frienton portion of this tier matches Smart Bookkeeping, and the price difference reflects the tax-firm services, which are invoiced directly by the firm. Startups and bootstrapping companies receive discounted entry conditions with up to 75% off in the first year. A free trial covering the first VAT pre-declaration period (up to 4 weeks) is available for new customers. Optional onboarding and migration services are available separately. All current pricing details at www.frienton.com/pricing.

Can I book a demo?

Yes, you can! We do provide demos of our system. Before booking an appointment, we recommend watching our YouTube tutorials to give you a broad understanding of what we do. Click here to schedule your demo.

We also conduct public webinars on a regular basis in which we showcase how to leverage our platform striving for an ideal setup in terms of financial administration. Follow us on LinkedIn or subscribe to our Frienton updates in order to stay up to date.

Which companies is Frienton suitable for?

Frienton is for growing companies with their own legal personality, where finance processes need to be structured, automated and shared across teams — in particular e-commerce sellers, digital and SaaS companies, consultancies, service businesses, start- & scaleups and holding companies. The qualifying factor is the complexity of the finance processes (several banks and payment providers, growing document volume, reporting and controlling needs, working with a tax firm), not the industry. Not intended for sole proprietors, GbRs or partnerships.

Which legal forms are supported by Frienton?

Frienton is ideal for capital companies — UG, GmbH, AG, eG and SE — as well as partnerships with capital-company characteristics, especially the GmbH & Co. KG. Non-charitable registered associations (e.V.) are also supported. Not intended for sole proprietors, GbRs or partnerships.

Does Frienton work with my DATEV or ADDISON tax firm?

Yes. Frienton delivers a fully pre-booked accounting batch in DATEV or ADDISON format directly to the existing tax firm, so the firm continues to work in its familiar production environment — no system switch on the firm side, no new software licence. On top of that, the firm gets direct multi-user access to the Frienton workspace and can review reports, correct postings, and comment per posting. Comments are exported into DATEV and are visible to the firm directly in DATEV. The result is genuine collaboration across both systems: Frienton on the client side, DATEV or ADDISON on the firm side.

How does switching from DATEV Unternehmen Online (DUO) or another system to Frienton work?

Frienton offers a structured migration process with three optional services: contact import takes over creditor and debtor master data from DATEV or comparable systems via CSV; personal expert onboarding configures the platform with individual settings, workflows and API connections; document migration and bulk upload transfer documents for a complete cut-over date migration. Frienton onboarding specialists guide the entire process; typical migrations are live within a few working days. Details, scope and current conditions are confirmed in the introductory call.

How is Frienton different from DATEV and Lexware Office?

Lexware Office is a bookkeeping software for solo-entrepreneurs and small companies with simple processes — and is fully replaced when Frienton is in use. Frienton is a fundamentally different functionality class: a Financial Operating System with multi-banking, live financial reporting (cashflow plan-vs-actual, Live-BWA and balance sheet), automatic posting rather than booking suggestions, payment approval workflows and native integrations to Stripe, Shopify, Shopware, Amazon, MOCO and others. DATEV Unternehmen Online (DUO) is the client portal of the DATEV ecosystem, optimised for document handover to the tax firm rather than operational finance steering inside the company. Frienton works — like Lexware Office — as a certified DATEV interface partner and delivers a pre-booked accounting batch in DATEV format to the existing tax firm, so the firm keeps its DATEV or ADDISON environment. Companies using Frienton no longer need DUO for day-to-day operations; the data remains accessible in DATEV.

Controlling

How do I keep track of my finances?

In the company overview "My company” of your account you have all of the important data at a glance – both in numbers and graphically. Expenses, income, account balances, important KPIs and trends: Simply select the desired period above: Week, Month, Quarter, Year or define an individual time span as you see fit.

In the "Cash flow" chart with the most important categories of income & expenses, you can immediately see the net income. The "Consolidated Overview" shows all the figures for the graph and notifications are stored for you in your mailbox.

Simply click on what interests you currently & you will receive further details down to the individual items/transactions if you like.

Where can I see my bank statements & individual transactions?

Your controlling is based on the real account transactions made & is therefore always up-to-date.

In the "My Company" overview, click on the area (graphic or number) that interests you in detail. The view of the associated transactions opens. If you just want to see all payment items, click on "Transactions" in the "Multibanking" section.

Here you will find the complete account statements, as you may already be used to from online banking. You can download them as a CSV or PDF file.

What reports are available to me?

The following reports are available 24/7

Cash flow
Live P&L (BWA)
Balance sheet

You can view all reports for your desired time period & export them as CSV or PDF files.

Multibanking

Check out the following video to learn more about our multibanking approach (DE): Multibanking | Introduction into the management of your bank connections.

How can I add a bank account?

You can easily connect your bank accounts or credit cards with Frienton. Simply click on "Multibanking" and then on the "Connect bank" button.

PayPal accounts can be connected in the same manner.

Can I rename or remove an account?

Yes, you can. If, for example, you have several accounts with a bank, private and business, then you can rename individual accounts or remove them from Frienton altogether.

To do this, click on the 3 dots (…) in the upper right corner of the account overview and then "Change" or "Remove".

Categorisation

How can I change the category of one or more transactions?

Frienton assigns your incoming and outgoing transactions to appropriate income and expense categories. If you want to adjust this on a case-by-case basis, click on the category in the corresponding transaction and select the new desired category.

You can also assign multiple transactions to a new category at the same time. To do this, simply select the ones you want to change and click on "Change Category".

Frienton learns your individual preferences & patterns and automatically assigns the right category to a similar transaction next time.

Can I add my own categories?

Yes, you can. We have already predefined a curated set of the most commonly used categories for your industry and made sure that these translate smoothly into the correct accounts for your official tax reporting (SKR 04). Your own custom categories (for bookkeeping and reporting) can be added as subcategories within this framework.

In order to do this, first click on settings and choose "Categories”. Here you will find an overview showing all 10 basic groups of income and expenses along with their pre-defined categories. Select the category for which you want to define a custom subcategory and click on the “+” symbol. Enter the name of the new subcategory and add an optional description. the click “Save”.

After you have completed these steps, the new subcategory is immediately available everywhere on the Frienton platform.

In case you want to edit or delete a subcategory, select it and click on either “Edit” or “Delete”.

Data privacy

… is the foundation for trust. The protection of personal data during the processing and use of our website or when using our services is of utmost importance to us. Your data is protected within the boundaries of all relevant legal regulations. That particularly includes the requirements defined by

the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

You want to learn more on how we protect your privacy? Then feel free to dive deeper into our comprehensive privacy policy.

Data security

We are well aware of the sensitive nature of your company’s data. This is exactly why we don’t accept any compromises regarding that matter and guarantee data security at bank level. For data transmission Frienton applies the highly secure TLS protocol with an AES-256-BIT encryption in line with common bank standards.

How does Frienton protect access to my data?

All sensitive data such as passwords and account transactions is protected via state-of-the-art encryption technology.

Your data is hosted and processed by our well-regarded & highly reliable partners exclusively on German servers in full compliance with all GDPR requirements.

Our most important partners are:

Amazon Web Services (AWS) – trusted cloud-computing provider of the biggest German corporations with highly secure data center in Frankfurt a. M.
d.velop – GoBD-compliant provider for the storage and archiving of documents
finAPI – BaFin-regulated account information and payment initiation service provider

Our partnership with d.velop guarantees for an audit-proof and GoBD-compliant archiving of all your business documents such as invoices, receipts and tax papers for the required duration of up to 10 years.

Access to your bank and account data is established exclusively via the BaFin-certified interface of our trusted partner finAPI in full compliance with the EU Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2). Your login credentials and all other information needed to gain access to said data is captured and processed directly within finAPI’s protected web environment. Frienton doesn’t maintain any direct relationships to its users’ banks. Data transmission is always safely encrypted.

Your banks’ respective PSD2-compliant security standards apply in order to protect your bank and account data from any form of unauthorised access. These standards also include the regular stipulation of the so called “strong” two-factor authentication. Frienton holds no control over the type and intervals of the corresponding queries.

The use of weak passwords bears a considerable risk regardless of all other security measures in place. So please make sure to set a strong password and consider the activation of two-factor authentication for the access to the Frienton platform.

How does Frienton ensure a high level of data availability?

If you should decide to delete your Frienton account, all your data will be removed permanently from our platform and our partners’ sytems. Unfortunately, the subsequent recovery of your data is no longer possible in such a case.

Settings

Can I change the login e-mail address?

Yes, in the "Settings" under "Profile" you can change the e-mail address for the login.

Which languages does Frienton support?

Frienton is currently available in German & English. To change the system language, click on "Profile" - "Language".

Can I delete my account?

You can deactivate your account at any time under "Settings" - "Delete profile".

Created with ❤ for entrepreneurs as well as small and medium-sized enterprises in Germany. With Frienton you have complete integrated digital financial management system from a single source.