Fideus or mika: with Fideus a tax advisor is mandatory, with mika it is optional

Fideus is a platform, not a tax firm. Bookkeeping, the Jahresabschluss and the tax returns are handled by a partner tax firm that every customer signs a mandate with. mika does not need a tax firm, because a GmbH is not required to have a tax advisor. With mika's AI you handle the routine yourself. A tax advisor is possible, but not a precondition.

Many founders believe a tax advisor is mandatory. It is not. The managing directors have to ensure proper bookkeeping (section 41 GmbHG, the German Limited Liability Companies Act) and fulfil the company's tax obligations (section 34 AO, the German Fiscal Code). They can be represented, that is what section 80 AO says. It is not a must.

The misconception has a practical reason: for a long time, companies in Germany effectively had only one way to deal with bookkeeping, the tax firm. Doing the balance sheet, corporate income tax and the E-Bilanz (the electronic submission of the financial statements to the tax office) yourself was hardly possible without expert knowledge, and the software for it was built for tax advisors.

Fideus makes this route more digital, but does not change it. The tax firm books, prepares the Jahresabschluss and files the tax returns. You have two contract partners, Fideus GmbH and the tax firm, and each invoices its own share. How quickly bookings happen and when the financial statements are ready is up to the tax firm.

With mika you handle receipt checks, account assignment, the advance VAT return (Umsatzsteuervoranmeldung), the Jahresabschluss and the tax returns in one app. The AI translates bookkeeping and tax law so that you do not need expert knowledge. Trained accountants take care of quality control for your ongoing bookkeeping.

You bring in a tax advisor when you need a tax strategy, representation towards the Finanzamt (the tax office) or have a special case: your own, or a recommendation from the mika network. The All Inclusive plan already includes a partner tax advisor. How much tax advisor you need is your decision, not your provider's.

With mika you file yourself, with Fideus the tax firm does. With mika, the advance VAT return, the Jahresabschluss and the tax returns are prepared from your ongoing bookkeeping. You approve them as managing director and send them to the Finanzamt with one click from mika. At Fideus the mandated tax firm prepares everything and files it after your approval.

At mika the Jahresabschluss includes the balance sheet, profit and loss statement and notes under the HGB (the German Commercial Code), as well as the corporate income tax, trade tax and annual VAT returns. The file for publication in the company register is included, and for the E-Bilanz mika works with eBilanzPlus. All of this is part of the "Bookkeeping and annual financial statements" plan from €99/month.

mika has a directly comparable holding offer, and bundled with the operating company the clearly better price.

• Holding financial statement at mika on its own: €600/year. Balance sheet, profit and loss statement, corporate income tax, trade tax, annual VAT return, publication in the Bundesanzeiger (Federal Gazette).
• Holding financial statement at mika as an add-on: €200/year, if the operating GmbH or UG runs on mika as well and the holding has up to 5 transactions a month.

At Fideus, too, the holding and the operating GmbH run on one platform, in one quote and with the same mandated tax firm. But you pay for a separate package per company. Fideus gives an example itself: an agency GmbH with around 500 bank transactions a year costs from €3,500/year there, so from €4,100/year with Holding Lite. At mika you pay €2,388/year for the same GmbH (up to 50 transactions a month) plus €200/year for the holding, €2,588/year in total.

Since March 2026 mika has run a native MCP server (Model Context Protocol) for Claude, ChatGPT and other LLM clients. Read-only, for all customers. You connect your AI tools directly to your mika data and ask bookkeeping questions with your real numbers as context. The answers come from your data, not from the internet.

On top of that, the mika Agent in the app: it has access to your own data, answers questions like "Why does this invoice have a to-do?", "Show me all AWS invoices from Q3" or "What do I owe the Finanzamt this month?" and translates letters from the authorities into clear instructions. A letter citing "section 152 AO late filing surcharge" becomes: "You filed the advance VAT return late, the Finanzamt is asking for €50, here is the deadline for an objection."

Fideus does not mention an MCP server for external AI tools on its website.

mika is rated 4.7 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot, from 29 reviews (as of October 2026). Almost 800 GmbHs and UGs use mika in production, the large majority of them operating companies.

Fideus is rated 4.5 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot, from 16 reviews (as of October 2026). The startup was founded in 2024 and, by its own account, manages more than 650 companies.

Fideus fits if your main focus is the holding, or if it matters a lot to you that a traditional tax firm prepares your financial statements, and you are willing to accept the dependency that comes with it. Your numbers are as current as the tax firm's bookings.

mika fits if you want to have your bookkeeping under control yourself without having to learn it. With mika's AI you handle bookkeeping, taxes and the Jahresabschluss in one app. You can look at your numbers any time, the BWA is updated hourly. That also applies to ecommerce, real estate or more than 100 transactions a month. Invoices, payment runs and expenses come along with it. The holding costs an extra €200/year instead of a separate package from €600, with up to 5 transactions a month. You bring in a tax advisor exactly when you need one, not because your provider cannot deliver without one.

Fideus digitises the tax firm and stays dependent on its partner tax firm. With mika you handle bookkeeping, taxes and the Jahresabschluss yourself and bring in a tax advisor only when you need one. For a GmbH and a holding together, mika is the obvious choice: from €99/month for the GmbH plus €200/year for the holding.