Belegomat is not the right solution for every situation — and we say that as the people behind it. Depending on what you actually need, a free template, a web generator, a subscription expense tool or a tax adviser may serve you better. This overview sorts the alternatives honestly by use case, with English-speaking freelancers and expats navigating German tax rules in mind.
Updated: June 2026
Transparency: this page is published by Belegomat. We compare as fairly as we can. Belegomat is a chat service that turns a photo of a restaurant receipt into a structured German-compliant replacement hospitality receipt (Eigenbeleg) as a PDF. That is a narrowly defined use case — for many other needs there are better tools, and those are exactly what we present here.
If all you are looking for is an empty form that you fill in, print and file yourself, you do not need a chat service. Lexware offers free Eigenbeleg and replacement-receipt templates for download (Word/PDF), and BuchhaltungsButler and Candis also publish free templates on their blogs. Be aware that almost all of these templates are in German only. For the hospitality case specifically, we additionally provide our own free PDF template with all seven mandatory details.
When a template beats Belegomat: when you do not use Telegram, prefer working on paper, or already have every detail in your head anyway. When it does not: when the original receipt is sitting in front of you and you do not want to copy its data out by hand — a template cannot read a photo, and it will not notice when a mandatory detail is missing.
For general-purpose self-issued receipts — a tip, a parking machine without a printout, a small cash purchase — free online generators are a convenient alternative. sevdesk offers a free Eigenbeleg generator as a web form (it is part of sevdesk’s marketing for its own accounting suite), quittungs-generator.de creates self-issued receipts online as a PDF free of charge, and rechnungen-muster.de combines sample forms with an online generator.
When a generator beats Belegomat: for every self-issued receipt that has nothing to do with business meals — Belegomat is simply not built for those. When it does not: when you are dealing with an incomplete restaurant receipt, because the generators are generic. You have to know the special mandatory hospitality details yourself and add them, and you type every figure from the receipt in by hand — typically into a German-language form. You will find a detailed side-by-side review in our Eigenbeleg generator comparison.
If you or your team are processing expenses all the time — travel costs, out-of-pocket payments, company credit cards — then a single-case tool like Belegomat is the wrong format. Classic expense tools such as Circula or Expensify are subscription systems built for continuous expense processes: submitting receipts, approving them, reimbursing them, exporting everything to the accounting system. Accounting suites such as those from sevdesk or Lexware cover these processes as well.
When an expense tool beats Belegomat: whenever continuous operation is the point — workflows, team approvals, reimbursements. When it does not: when you need to replace a single missing or incomplete hospitality receipt, once. Taking out a subscription for that one receipt rarely makes sense.
No tool replaces professional advice. If large amounts are at stake, if the tax office has already challenged one of your self-issued receipts, or if it is unclear whether an expense was genuinely business-related, the case belongs with a tax adviser (Steuerberater). For expats this is doubly true: many advisers in Germany work with international clients in English and can also speak to the Finanzamt on your behalf. It costs money, but in disputed situations it is the only alternative that genuinely helps.
When an adviser beats Belegomat: for anything that goes beyond pure documentation — assessment, objections, audits. When it does not: for quickly producing a simple replacement receipt, the route through a tax firm is disproportionately expensive and slow.
That leaves the case Belegomat was built for: a hospitality receipt has been lost or is incomplete — for instance because the occasion and the participants are missing — and you need a complete replacement once, quickly, and in a format the German tax office understands. You send a photo in the Telegram chat, the data is captured via OCR, missing mandatory details are requested in a dialogue, and you receive a PDF. Currently free, with no Belegomat account — a Telegram account is required, though.
Here too, honestly: Belegomat is a young service and a single-case tool, not an expense workflow. And like every self-issued receipt (Eigenbeleg), the result does not replace an original receipt: no input VAT deduction, and recognition is decided by the tax office case by case.
The best alternative to Belegomat depends on what you actually need: templates for the blank form, web generators for general-purpose self-issued receipts, expense tools for continuous operation, a tax adviser for disputed cases. Belegomat deliberately occupies just one niche — the fast, guided replacement hospitality receipt built from a photo. If that is exactly what you need, you are in the right place; if you need something else, you will be better served by the alternatives above.
This article is not tax advice. Recognition is always decided case by case by the competent tax office (Finanzamt).
It depends on your use case: for a blank form, a free template is enough (for example from Lexware, or our own PDF template). For regular general-purpose self-issued receipts, web generators such as sevdesk’s are convenient. For ongoing expense processes, subscription expense tools are the right choice — and for complex cases, a tax adviser.
Yes, several: Lexware, BuchhaltungsButler and Candis offer free Eigenbeleg templates, while sevdesk, quittungs-generator.de and rechnungen-muster.de offer free online generators. Belegomat itself is also currently free.
When you or your team process a steady stream of expenses and need approval or reimbursement workflows. Expense tools such as Circula or Expensify are subscription systems built for exactly this kind of continuous operation. Belegomat, by contrast, is a single-case tool for missing or incomplete hospitality receipts.
Belegomat only runs on Telegram, is specialised in replacement hospitality receipts, offers no expense workflow and is a young service. And as with any self-issued receipt: no input VAT deduction, and the tax office decides on recognition case by case.
Send a photo in chat. The details are captured. You receive your replacement hospitality receipt as a PDF.