Kontist Reviews 

I used to dread dealing with my taxes, and deciphering cryptic letters from the Finanzamt. After hearing about Kontist, and jumping on an initial call with a team rep, it sounded almost too good to be true that I found a service that offered dealing with everything I did not like to deal with—giving me more time to focus on my self-employment business. At the risk of sounding cliché, using this service has been a game-changer—bookkeeping is a breeze, all my accounting questions get answered, no more fears about errors in my number crunching.

Having said that, what I appreciate the most is the excellent and friendly customer service. I'm Canadian, and really value great customer service. Even if something's not perfect or streamlined yet, the reps have always helped me—in a timely manner—when I needed support. Looking forward to seeing how this company grows.

Amazing service, good web site, the perfect fit for self-employed people. Very easy to use app, everything in one place, together with a great customer support.

It is the second time in four years that I open an account with Kontist. In the beginning the serice was very bad, but I decided to still give it a go, hoping that the startup gets bettern and improves the service.

Fast forward 4 years—I cannot log into the app for a week now. People from customer support keep repeating their stupid mantra "there is nothing we can do, we forwarded it to another department" "there is nothing I can do, I am sorry"

Along the way customer support managed to mess a couple of other things up.

Still cannot access my bank account.

I would discourage anyone from using Kontist

Awkward sales process. There seemed to be zero interest in winning me as a client. I was simply told that my current situation doesn't work with their product and that's it - end of the talk. Since I will meet their prerequisites in the near future, I still would have considered them but that guy wasn't even interested nor showed any motivation to sell me their product. That first poor impression sticks and so they are off my list of options.

Do not use Kontist if you are working as a Digital Nomad!

Kontist was suggested to me through online research while looking for a bank account that suits my needs as a Freelancer and Digital Nomad. Unfortunately I had to find out it's absolutely useless for my needs as I can't access my account anymore. I forgot my password and wanted to reset it, the TAN was supposed to be sent via SMS. I'm abroad at the moment and therefore the TAN does not get delivered. I contacted Kontist's customer support and their answers have been more then useless. Yes, the problem that the TAN is not being delivered is that I'm abroad, I get this, apparently this problem is known to Kontist, but they do not offer an alternative method to reset the password, like postal or verification via passport.

I want to close my account with them and have my money transferred to my other bank account, but so far customer support has not offered any help with this at all. I don't know how to get my money back now. I recommend to stay away from this company. A digital bank that can not even send their TAN's internationally is useless. (I do receive messages and TAN's from other companies / banks from abroad)

Way too many human and app mistakes:

1. When downgrading from Duo to Premium, my account got locked out. It took days to unlock it. This happened to people before me, just read other reviews
2. When starting my Duo-membership in march 2022 there was (still is on 07 July 2022) 30% discount (permanent discount?), ie. 13€/month. However, I was billed full price and after several support emails back and forth, they promised me to compensate me next month with a deducted price. That didn't happen and thus a new wave of emails back-forth. It took more than a month to really fix this mistake of theirs
3. I was considering using their tax advisor services but after talking to their guy on the phone I decided to pay 3200€/year for a professional help outside. To sum up, the Kontist guy told me they got a team of ONE tax advisor and a bunch of help (he mentioned students) to help out doing those taxes. In addition, he was the one "senior" staff member but could not answer several simple questions like expenses I can deduct. His English was rather poor and I am not sure he understood me anyway.
4. Receiver of the payment (tested with web app) cannot be someone containing German letters like ü (in my case München Finanzamt). In general, you are supposed to use the phone app, this is a constant feedback I get from Kontist. So web app is poorly supported I guess. Another example is reoccurring payments. I created one without an end date, for the the health insurance, but there was no option to stop it. It turns out, only phone app has that option.
3. Support is answering your case within 2-3 days, even with Duo-membership.
5. In general the app is not intuitive, even though there is a handful functionality implemented. I truly feel unsafe filling things out, like payments, invoices, etc.

You will loose a lot of time on support, at least this was my impression. The company never seem to be happy with a complete explanation to your problem, like point 1 or 2 above, and start executing fixes. You need to spend time repeating and explaining yourself over and over again, never adding anything new to your case. Do I need to give further explanation to the point 1, other than I asked for a downgrade and after that I was locked out?

I would give less than a 1 star rating if I could...
This bank locked my cards with no explanation, and when I have been in contact with Kontist regarding this, on more than one occasion, all they tell me is that SolarisBank AG has to fix the problem. Customer support is not allowed to speak to SolarisBank AG, they can only email them. They have no updates about what is going on, aside from the fact they have notified SolarisBank AG and you have to wait for SolarisBank AG to investigate. When I then tried to make a further complaint, I am told that ll complaints need to go to SolarisBank AG directly as Kontist is not actually a bank.
Kontist, and therefore SolarisBank AG left me stranded in the UK with no access to my money and after more than 2 weeks, have still not unlocked my account or even given me a reason as to what the problem is, they are simply holding the money in my account with no explanation

I was using this app for 2 weeks and one day i top up my balance, bank declined the transaction and my balance became -19200 euro!!!What to do??I white to support on the website and email but i cant get any answer!!!Please contact with me!!
They told me i need to deposit 19.200€ till 28 may!!
Please urgently contact with me!!

UPD 08.05.2023
Still no answer hahahahah, still sending me letters that i need to pay 19.200 euro(but also they keep adding some fee)

Waiting for video verification more than hour and still.

Dealing with German officials can be very difficult, as in my case my German language is very basic.

But fear not if you need to run a small company or freelance gig as a foreigner, because Kontist has your back!

It was super easy to start up with them.

Super friendly and informative service. They take care of all communication with the "Finanzamt" the tax office in Germany.

Their APP/website is easy to use.

I'm been using their service for 3 months and am very satisfied!

Florence was a total pleasure to work with. She was really helpful and goal driven. We achieved everything we needed in a very efficient way.

They told me that Germany had bad Customer Service standards, I didn't know the extent of that.

I hate to leave bad reviews, but this is the only way I can make them listen to my worrying situation since Customer Service is not replying.
This is a bank, not even a smaller one, and this kind of behaviour is unacceptable.

I registered about a week ago, and I did the Identification process, it looked like the standard procedure up until the moment the employee TOOK A PHOTO OF MY PASSPORT WITH A PHONE, instead of scanning with the encrypted software they have to use (I hope)!
I only realized what gigantic risk is this after the event.
I tried to contact the Customer Service, but instead of escalating this (or, at least, reassuring me that the Dark web is not yet selling my Id) they simply left me out of the app for 5 days now (my data are still being processed for some reason, and I cannot access the account, without explanation or apologies), saying that I have to be patient and wait for a reply from Solaris Bank since the guy is not one of their employee (!!!).
I don't feel that my data are protected, I don't feel welcomed into their service.
This is a bank, for god sake, if they don't care about personal data protection and potential identity theft who does?
I'll do anything I can to know what happened to that photo of my passport.

Perfect bank account for freelancing.

I started freelancing earlier this year and needed a business account for this purpose. I found Kontist online and opened an account with them - the setup was pretty easy. Their online app is quite basic, but I don't need it to be much more than it is. They have an invoicing section which would be useful if I didn't already have that set up elsewhere. The cost is a little more than I was expecting, but still very affordable.

Beyond terrible customer support especially for the tax service. They say on the website that you can talk with customer service anytime but that is basically almost impossible. I am using their tax service for a year and every time I wanted to reach out for questions on sensitive issues, I had to wait for a couple of days for someone to call back. Alternatively, they don't call back at all. And the monthly subscription for the tax service is really quite pricey for a service that basically has no customer support. I recommend finding a regular accountant.

I spent weeks researching the best business account and decided on Kontist. Less than a year later they're closing my account because they will no longer serve US citizens.

Ubehagelige mafiametoder

Oprettelse af konto, identifikation osv. virker rigtig fint. Da jeg åbner appen, der skal jeg vælge hvilken plan, jeg scroller hen til "Free", pludselig laver appen en masse blink, og der bliver valgt en anden plan.

Jeg kontakter med det samme supporten, og forklarer, at det var den gratis plan, som jeg ville have valgt, og om de kan rykke mig over på den.

Et utroligt uopdragent menneske tager over på kommunikationen.
Stephanie:
"I have changed you back to Free. Unfortunately we cannot reverse the charge that started for this month. These are 3,51EUR that will be deducted from your account once there are funds available. "

Mig: Dear Stephanie. Of course I will not pay for a mistake in the app. I am contacting you the minute this happens, and I really hope this will not be my first experience with you guys.

Stephanie: Sorry, it is just hard to reflect from our side, that rarely happens. But we will not fight for that amount with you. *wink* I stopped the collection so no worries from your side.

Man ved på intet tidspunkt i appen, hvilken plan man er på, hvilket giver stof til eftertanke over situationen.

Så først er det slet ikke muligt at få pengene retur, men så er det pludselig muligt, med et enormt arrogant svar.

Jeg opsagde kontoen, og der er gået 9 hverdage.
Hvis det her er måden de tjener penge på, så vil jeg nødigt have nogle af mine penge blive behandlet af dem.

### UPDATE ###
Dear Kai.
I think it really shows, what kind of standard this company have, when you want to force an apology out of me, for your colleague's bad support.

First she says that she cannot do anything - which both was a lie, and illigal to charge me for a service I have not used og chosen. In any case, I would have 14 days right of withdrawal.

And then you want me to apologize for saying that she is an "uopdragent" person.
First, Uopdragent is a light word for a person who has bad communication manners - which I still stand by. Her communication skills are clearly at the level of a 13 years old, putting wink emojis after a somewhat bitchy answer.
Second, what an absolute embarrassment to stick up for a colleague, on the cost of the company's image. She clearly did something illegal, and you supporting it says it all.

Great account, tax accounting support and relatively well built app for freelancers.

I really like Kontist. It's easy to use, very clear and practical :)

Great bank—so helpful for freelancers!

Best freelancer banking solution in Germany!