The problem: the quarterly PDF ritual
Ten days before every VAT declaration deadline, the same thing happens in thousands of Belgian mailboxes: your accountant asks for the quarter's invoices. You dig through your inbox, download PDFs from three different portals, screenshot a few bank confirmations, zip everything, and send it over. Two days later they email back: "Missing the invoice from May 14th". You start again.
This ritual is not free. It costs your accountant billable hours to chase files. It costs you time and mental load. And it creates a real risk: something always slips through — a lost receipt, a duplicate, a wrong VAT rate — and it only shows up during the declaration.
DEMFACT solves this by giving your accountant readonly access to your own account. They log in, see exactly what you see, and pull the numbers they need. No emails, no ZIP files, no follow-up questions.
What real-time accountant access looks like
When you invite your accountant, they get a dedicated dashboard listing all their clients — you, and any other freelancer or SME who invited them. From that dashboard, one click puts them into "Manage client" mode: they see your platform exactly as you do, with a clear banner at the top reminding them they are viewing your data.
In that mode, they access:
- Invoices — every invoice you have emitted, sortable by date, status, client. They can mark items as paid, send payment reminders, and download PDFs individually or in bulk.
- PEPPOL Outbox & Inbox — the invoices you sent through the PEPPOL network, and the ones you received from suppliers. Each with delivery status, timestamps, and one-click export.
- Scanned receipts — the fuel receipts, restaurant bills, and supplier invoices you photographed with your phone. DEMFACT's OCR has already extracted the supplier, VAT number, date, and amount. Your accountant just verifies.
- Clients & companies — your customer list and your company's fiscal data (VAT number, address, IBAN).
- Dashboard — the live view of the current quarter: revenue, VAT collected, VAT to reclaim, unpaid invoices, overdue amounts.
Everything is live. When you issue an invoice on Monday at 10:00, your accountant sees it on Monday at 10:00 — not on the 10th of the following month when the PDF finally lands in their inbox.
Exports in the formats your accountant already uses
Real-time visibility is only half the value. The other half is that DEMFACT exports directly in the formats Belgian accountants actually work with. From the PEPPOL Outbox or Inbox, from the Reports page, or from the client row in the dashboard, they can download:
- CSV — universal, opens in Excel or LibreOffice, one row per invoice with amounts, VAT, dates and status.
- WinBooks — the ACT + CSF file pair that imports directly into WinBooks Classic and WinBooks on Web. Journals VEN (sales) and ACH (purchases) are generated with the correct account codes and VAT grid codes.
- BOB50 / Sage — the TXT format that Sage BOB50 imports without any post-processing.
All three formats are available on both plans — Free and Professional. There is no export gate. Your accountant chooses the format, filters by quarter or custom date range, and imports into their bookkeeping software in seconds.
Security and GDPR: what your accountant can and cannot do
Giving someone access to your fiscal data is a decision worth thinking about. DEMFACT is built with that in mind.
Readonly by default. When you invite an accountant, the default access level is readonly. They see your data, they export it, they mark invoices as paid, they send payment reminders — but they cannot emit invoices in your name, cannot modify your company details, and cannot re-transmit PEPPOL invoices. If you specifically want them to be able to emit invoices on your behalf, you can upgrade their access to full — but only if you explicitly grant it.
Signed contract. Before the collaboration is active, both parties sign a digital contract that spells out the access level, the confidentiality obligations, and the termination clause. The contract is generated automatically, signed with cryptographic signatures on both sides, and stored for the seven years Belgian tax law requires. Both parties can download the PDF at any time.
Immutable audit log. Every action your accountant takes — every login, every switch to your account, every export, every reminder sent, every invoice viewed — is written to an audit log that they cannot alter. You can request a copy at any time under GDPR's right of access.
One-click revocation. If you want to end the collaboration — because you switched accountants, because the relationship soured, or for any other reason — you go to your profile, hit "Revoke access", confirm, and the accountant is out. Their view of your data terminates instantly. Historical exports they downloaded before revocation remain in their possession (as they would with any paper-era filing), but no new access is possible.
How to set it up (3 steps, less than 5 minutes)
Step 1 — Ask your accountant for their DEMFACT email. If they don't have a DEMFACT account yet, direct them to demfact.com/for-accountants. Registration is free.
Step 2 — Send them your client token. In your DEMFACT profile, under "Accountant access", you have a unique token. Share it with your accountant. They enter it in their "Add Client" screen and DEMFACT generates the contract for you both to sign. Alternatively, your accountant can send you an email invitation — you accept it with one click and the contract flow starts.
Step 3 — Both sign the contract. The accountant signs first, you receive an email with a link, you sign. The moment the second signature lands, the relationship is active. Your accountant sees your data in their dashboard from the next second onward.
What's in it for your accountant
If you are reading this as a freelancer and your accountant is skeptical, here is what they get:
- Unified dashboard for all their clients. One screen with every client's VAT position, unpaid invoices, overdue amounts, and quarterly totals — sortable, filterable, ready before you even ask.
- No more inbox hunting. No PDFs to file, no ZIP archives to open, no follow-up emails asking for missing invoices. Everything is already there.
- Real-time overdue alerts. When a client's invoice becomes overdue, the dashboard flags it in red. The accountant can trigger a payment reminder on the client's behalf with one click.
- Direct imports into WinBooks, BOB50, or CSV. No manual data entry. No copy-paste. No transcription errors.
- Free forever, up to 3 clients. The Professional tier (€5/month or €50/year) unlocks unlimited clients and internal messaging with them, but everything essential for VAT declarations is on the Free plan.
Belgian accountants typically save one to two hours per client per quarter with real-time access, according to the ones we have talked to. Over a portfolio of twenty freelancers, that is a full working day recovered every three months.
Ready to stop emailing PDFs?
The Belgian e-invoicing mandate that came into force on 1 January 2026 already forces you to structure your invoices. DEMFACT extends that structure all the way to your accountant's bookkeeping software — with a compliance and security posture that matches what the tax administration itself expects.
Create a free DEMFACT account, invite your accountant, and reclaim the ten days a year you spend on the quarterly PDF dance.