Choosing well
What to know: Accountants working on cloud platforms in Belgium
What made the question urgent
Since 1 January 2026, structured electronic invoicing has been mandatory between VAT-registered businesses established in Belgium. This is not a matter of emailing a PDF: the invoice travels in Peppol BIS format across a network where each party has an access point. In practice a business must be able to issue and receive in that format, and its accountant must be able to work with it. Practices already on a connected platform absorbed the change; those working on paper had to choose a tool in a hurry.
Four platforms, four different roles
They are not interchangeable, and a practice often runs two. Yuki and Exact Online are complete online ledgers, where the file lives end to end. Octopus is a Belgian package widely used in mid-sized practices, with a portal through which the client submits documents. Silverfin plays a different part. It adds a working-papers and reporting layer over one, used to produce audit files, annual accounts and dashboards. A practice announcing Silverfin is therefore announcing a review method, not a place to key entries.
What the client gains, and what they give up
They gain the end of the quarterly folder, a VAT return prepared on data already entered, and the ability to ask about a figure both parties are looking at together. They give up some freedom: the platform imposes a flow, a way of naming and sending, and the practice that has mastered it will not migrate to another tool for one client. That is a real trade-off, not automatic progress.
Three questions before signing
First: who pays for the licence, the practice or the client, and what becomes of it if the relationship ends. Second: what does the client have access to, their own documents, or the trial balance and general ledger too. Third, the most important and the least asked: what can be taken away on leaving. A complete and usable accounting export is not guaranteed on every platform, and it is what determines the real cost of changing practice three years later. The answer belongs in the engagement letter, mandatory since 2020 between an ITAA member and their client.