Almost nobody publishes their rates. Here are the three billing models on the market, what they hide, and ours: 325 € a month, everything included.
Look for the rates of a Luxembourg accounting firm on its website: in almost every case you will not find them. You will find "on request", "tailored to your needs", and a contact form. We take the opposite view. At Advena, bookkeeping for an SME starts at 325 € a month, everything included, and "everything included" means there is nothing else to pay.
This page exists because we get the same question at every first meeting: "so what does it actually cost?". That deserves better than an opaque quote. Here is how the market bills, where the unpleasant surprises hide, and what we do differently.
How do accounting firms bill in Luxembourg?
Three models coexist on the Luxembourg market. They do not cost the same, and more importantly they do not expose you to the same risks.
| Model | How it works | The risk for you |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly fees | An hourly rate, a record of time spent, an invoice each quarter or each year | You only learn the amount afterwards. Every phone call is a potential invoice line. |
| Per-item billing | A price per entry, per invoice processed, per filing | Your accounting cost rises mechanically as your business grows, with no link to the value actually delivered. |
| Monthly fixed fee | A fixed amount covering a defined scope | None, provided the scope is genuinely complete. The whole trap sits in the list of exclusions. |
The fixed fee is the only model that aligns incentives. As long as a firm is paid for time spent, it has no economic reason to automate your file. On a fixed fee, it has every reason to.
The real issue is not the headline price, it is what sits outside the fee
This is where the gap between the quote and the final invoice opens up. An accounting "package" frequently excludes, without saying so very loudly:
- preparing the annual accounts and filing them with the trade register, billed separately at year end;
- annual tax returns;
- payroll, often priced per payslip;
- catch-up work, corrections, taking over historical data;
- questions asked during the year, counted by the hour;
- fixing entries you did not book yourself.
Every director who has lived through it knows the outcome: a reasonable-looking monthly fee, and a year-end bill that doubles the total. Filing the annual accounts is in fact the item most often carved out of the fee, even though it is an annual legal obligation and entirely predictable, with its own deadlines and late-filing surcharges.
What our 325 € monthly fee covers
One amount, one line, no asterisk. For 325 € a month, starting from:
- Day-to-day bookkeeping: entries, matching, bank reconciliation, document tracking.
- VAT: periodic returns filed on the eCDF platform, at the right frequency.
- Annual accounts and filing with the trade register: prepared, approved, filed. Included, not invoiced in February.
- Payroll: payslips and social security filings.
- A monthly call with your account manager: a real person, the same one every month, who knows your file.
- A monthly report on how your business is doing: where you stand now, not where you stood eight months ago.
- Permanent access to your accounts in real time, whenever you want to look.
There is no hourly billing on top. No "telephone calls" line. No surcharge for a question asked in March. If you call us twelve times a year, it costs 325 € a month. If you never call us, it also costs 325 € a month, and frankly that is a bad sign.
Want to know what your file would cost on a fixed fee? We answer with a number, not with a quote in three weeks.
Ask for your feeWhat does "up-to-date accounts" actually mean?
At most firms the cycle runs like this: you drop off your paperwork, it gets entered a few weeks or a few months later, and you discover your result for year N in the spring of year N+1. By then the information cannot inform any decision. It can only confirm one.
Our model runs the other way. Bank transactions flow into the system automatically, as we explain in our article on bank synchronisation. Vendor bills are read and pre-booked by automatic recognition as soon as they arrive. And you get a financial dashboard that shows today's position, not last quarter's.
What that means in practice: when a client asks us in July whether they can afford to hire, they get the answer in July. Their cash forecast, their margin by activity and their order book all sit in the same system. This is not a technological feat, it is simply what a properly wired tool allows.
Why an accounting firm that also does ERP
We did not start with accounting. We started by deploying Odoo in Luxembourg SMEs, and we spent two years watching the same scene: a spotless tool on the operations side, and the books kept next door, blind, by a firm that never opened it. Double entry, discrepancies, questions with no answer.
Doing both solves the problem at the root. Your operations and your accounts live in the same system, configured around the PCN 2020, with the FAIA and eCDF exports that go with it. No more file transfers, no more year-end reconstruction, no more "we never received your documents". No traditional accounting firm can do this, because it does not touch your tool. No integrator can do it either, because it does not keep your books.
Who this model is not for
Better said plainly, it will save us both a pointless meeting.
If what you want is somebody to hand a box of invoices to once a year and never think about it in between, our model brings you nothing: you would be paying for real time you never use. If you are a complex multi-jurisdiction holding structure with transfer pricing issues, your need belongs with a specialist firm, not with a fixed fee. And if your document volume is very high, the 325 € entry point will not hold: we will tell you at the first conversation rather than halfway through the year.
Our ground is the Luxembourg SME between 1 and 50 employees that wants to stop flying blind.
Frequently asked questions
Does the 325 € fee really cover the annual accounts?
Yes. Preparing the annual accounts and filing them with the trade register is included in the monthly fee. It is precisely the item the market usually carves out, which is why we put it in.
What happens if I have a lot of questions during the year?
Nothing. There is no clock running. The monthly call with your account manager exists for that, and exchanges between calls are not billed.
Do I have to use Odoo to work with you?
It is the foundation we work on, and it is included in the engagement. If you already run another tool, we talk it through: sometimes a migration is straightforward, sometimes it makes no sense in the short term.
Can I switch accountant mid-year?
Yes, nothing prevents it. Taking over a file mid-year means some work recovering data and picking up opening balances, but it is a common scenario. The start of a financial year remains the simplest moment, if you can wait.
Does the price go up as my business grows?
325 € is an entry point. Above a certain volume or complexity (multi-company, international activity, high document volume), the fee is reassessed. But it stays a fixed fee: you know the amount in advance rather than discovering it on the invoice.
Going further
- Filing annual accounts in Luxembourg: deadlines, late fees and preparation
- Fractional CFO in Luxembourg: who needs one, what it covers, what it costs
- Setting up a SARL in Luxembourg: steps, capital and procedures
- Financial dashboards in Odoo: steering your SME in real time
- Odoo in Luxembourg: is it the right ERP for your SME?
Why Advena?
We are the only Luxembourg accounting firm that keeps your books inside the tool it deployed for you. A closed monthly fee, a named account manager, accounts that are permanently up to date, and not one invoice line you did not see coming. If we ever bill you an extra, it means we failed to do what we promise here.
Tell us where you stand and we will tell you what it costs. No phantom quote, no sales chase.
Talk about your file
