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Reporting with Exact Online: what the package can do itself, where it hits its limits and how to fill the gap (2026)
Exact Online is the most widely used SME accounting package in the Netherlands — strong at recording, limited at steering. What it offers for reporting itself, where the limits sit and how to close them without switching packages.
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Reporting with Exact Online: the package delivers solid reports per administration, but no custom layout, cash flow statement or group picture — Finstack fills that gap from EUR 39/month.
Reporting with Exact Online: what the package can do itself, where it hits its limits and how to fill the gap
From the standard reports in Exact to a full management report — dashboards, 2-way Excel sync and consolidation on top.
TL;DR
Exact Online delivers solid standard reports per administration — P&L, balance sheet, trial balance, aging analysis — but a management report asks for more: a custom layout, the comparison against budget and last year, KPI trends, a cash flow statement and, with multiple administrations, a group picture. You fill that gap through Excel, a BI tool or a reporting tool on the data layer. Finstack connects Exact Online directly via the official API — read-only, at transaction level — and delivers dashboards, 2-way Excel sync and consolidation from EUR 39/month.
What can Exact Online do for management reporting itself?
Exact Online delivers a solid base set per administration: a profit and loss statement and balance sheet, a trial balance, the VAT return, and receivables and payables overviews with an aging analysis. Accounts are grouped into summary groups you maintain yourself — these determine the grouping in the reports — and the overview screens give the owner a quick picture of revenue, costs and open items.
The dimension is there too: Exact Online treats cost centers as a full-fledged field, so bookings can be tagged by team or location. Whoever keeps that discipline in the administration lays the foundation for reporting per unit — even if that reporting itself happens outside the package later.
Within its own domain, all of that is reliable: the figures are current, reconcile with the general ledger by definition and are directly usable for the bookkeeper or accountant. For a business with one entity, a simple cost structure and an owner who mainly wants to know whether the month was positive, that goes a long way — certainly in combination with the bank feed, the picture in Exact is more current than many a monthly report ever was.
A management report is just something other than a printout. The norm — worked out in the main article on the good management report — has seven fixed sections, from summary to commentary, in a layout management understands and with comparisons against budget and last year. That is exactly where the package stops: the reports follow the logic of the administration, not of the meeting. Exact itself now also promotes reporting capabilities, but whoever clicks through sees that those are mainly aimed at the annual accounts — accounting for the past, something fundamentally different from steering information; the distinction between the two is worked out in that same main article. Where that pinches concretely is covered in the next section — and that is no criticism of Exact Online, but the difference between a recording system and a steering instrument.
Where does Exact Online hit its limits in management reporting?
Exact Online hits its limits in management reporting at the same five points as every accounting package — each with an Exact-specific color.
The layout. The reports follow the chart of accounts and its summary groups. That grouping is adjustable — you assign accounts to main and sub groups yourself — but that is where it stops: calculated lines such as an EBITDA line or a margin bridge, and subtotals outside that hierarchy, cannot be built in.
The comparison. Budgets can be recorded in Exact Online, at account and cost-center level. The comparison stays within the ledger frame, though: month and year-to-date next to budget, last year and a latest estimate — the setup the variance analysis asks for — is not something you build in there.
The KPIs and the cash flow. A fixed KPI set with twelve-month trends is missing, and a full cash flow statement — for many readers the most important section of the report — is not something the package delivers.
Multiple administrations. Every administration stands alone. A group picture across two or more entities — added up and cleaned of internal deliveries and recharges — does not exist within the package; more on that further down.
Sharing. The report leaves the package as a PDF or export. Letting management or an investor look along structurally means handing out an Exact login — with far more visible than intended — or emailing every month. And whoever serves several readers — management, investors, the bank — repeats that trick every single month.
The common thread: these are design choices of a recording system, not flaws. Exact Online has to handle bookings, filings and the collaboration with the accountant flawlessly, and it does that well. The reporting question deserves its own answer — and three possible routes.
Excel, BI or a reporting tool: which route fits Exact Online?
For reporting on top of Exact Online there are three routes — and which one fits depends on structure and team.
Route 1: Excel. Exporting from Exact and pasting into your own model — the route almost everyone knows. Flexible and free of extra cost, but the process pinches: manual work every month, version differences, and after a correction in Exact the export starts over. The model is rarely the problem; the feed is. How to automate that feed without giving up the model is covered in automating management reporting.
Route 2: a BI tool. Power BI and similar tools connect fine to Exact Online, and are strong once non-financial sources join. The flip side: setup and maintenance require a consultant or power user, every new ledger account has to be mapped by hand, and finance logic — eliminations, budget comparison, click-through to the booking — you build in yourself.
Route 3: a reporting tool on the data layer. A tool that connects Exact Online through the API, maps the figures to your own reporting structure and ships the finance logic as standard. With Exact Online this route is particularly strong, because the official API unlocks the data at transaction level — the basis for click-through, detailed analysis and clean consolidation.
The rule of thumb: one administration and a simple structure — Excel often works. A data team and many operational sources — BI fits. A custom layout, multiple administrations or stakeholders who need to look along — then the data-layer route is the logical one; the broader tool trade-off sits in the best consolidation software for SMEs.
How do you connect Exact Online to a reporting tool?
The connection between Finstack and Exact Online runs through the official Exact Online REST API and stands in a few clicks: in Finstack you select Exact Online as a source, log in at Exact and confirm access — about 5 minutes of work per administration, including all international variants of Exact Online.
The connection is read-only and works at transaction level. Finstack retrieves not just period balances but the underlying general ledger transactions with date, journal, contra account, description and currency — plus the trial balances, the chart of accounts, the open items and the cost centers. That detail is essential for reporting: it makes clicking through from a report figure to the source booking in Exact possible, and it feeds the aging analysis and the customer-and-supplier overview. Writing back is not possible: bookings stay fully in the user’s hands in Exact itself, and the sync is as light for Exact as a regular export.
The first synchronization pulls in the full history — not just the current financial year but the years before it, so trends and analyses work across the entire history — and after that the actuals refresh automatically every day, with a manual refresh at any moment: useful right before the reporting deadline or after a correction that needs to show immediately.
Then comes the step that makes the difference for reporting: the mapping. The Exact accounts are linked to your own reporting structure — the layout management understands, independent of the chart-of-accounts order. Cost centers from Exact join as a second dimension, with a dedicated mapping per cost center where wanted. And the budget and the latest estimate live where they already live — in your own Excel or Sheets model — and sit next to the actuals through the 2-way sync. One-off work, typically within a day, and after that it runs every month.
How do you report next: dashboards, Excel and sharing with stakeholders?
Reporting then runs along two equal roads — and most teams use both.
From the platform. The Finstack dashboards show the P&L, the balance sheet, the cash flow statement and the KPIs continuously current, in your own reporting layout and with every line clickable through to the source booking in Exact Online — the question that would be a search through the ledger in Exact itself. Filtering and grouping on cost centers works along with it — per team, location or project. And working capital gets the insights Exact itself only partly offers: a direct cash flow overview, a customer-and-supplier overview, and the aging analysis — for a group across all administrations.
In your own Excel or Google Sheets model. Through the 2-way sync, the actuals from Exact refresh in the existing model in one click, next to the budget columns. The structure, the formulas and the formatting stay untouched — only the monthly export-and-paste work disappears. That works identically in Excel and Google Sheets.
Nor does it have to stay one structure: parallel reports — your own management layout next to the fixed template of an investor or bank — run simultaneously on the same figures; see parallel reporting for SME CFOs.
Sharing closes the chain. Stakeholders such as management, investors and the accountant get access to the dashboards and reports through Finstack, with rights per user: every reader sees what is meant for them and can change or break nothing. No PDFs circulating in three versions, no Exact login for whoever only needs the report — and the question “where does this number come from?” is answered during the meeting with one click.
What changes with multiple Exact Online administrations?
With two or more administrations — a holding with operating companies, multiple location entities — the per-administration limit of Exact Online becomes hard: the package does not add administrations up into one group picture.
Adding up alone is not enough either. A management fee from the holding, recharged salaries or internal deliveries sit in two administrations at once — as revenue at one and costs at the other — and count twice in a simple addition. Those intercompany flows have to be eliminated at group level before group revenue and margin are right. What that group report looks like in substance is covered in management reporting for a holding company with multiple entities.
Finstack handles the processing side: every Exact administration connects separately, is mapped to one group chart of accounts, and the intercompany relations are recognized automatically and eliminated in the group picture — from 1 to 50 entities, without setting up separate IC accounts. Mixing works too: a holding on Exact Online and a subsidiary on another package simply run together in one consolidated report — think Dutch entities on Exact with a foreign subsidiary on a local package; for the reporting it makes no difference. The month-end close per administration meanwhile simply keeps happening in Exact, exactly where it belongs.
For the deeper consolidation mechanics with Exact Online — IC detection on account, counter-entity and amount, reconciliation, eliminations in the consolidation layer — there is a dedicated deep-dive: consolidating with Exact Online. This reporting article deliberately does not duplicate that; here the result counts — the group picture and the per-entity figures from one process, with the working-capital insights at group level included.
What does reporting on top of Exact Online cost and how fast are you live?
Finstack starts from EUR 39 per month for the first entity, with no implementation fees. The connection with Exact Online is live in 5 minutes and the full setup — mapping to your own reporting structure, dashboards, Excel sync — typically stands within a day.
Control then stays with finance: you adjust mappings and structures yourself, without waiting on an accountant or consultant and without an invoice per change. If you would rather hand off the setup entirely, you can opt for guided onboarding: the Finstack team then sets up the report together with you.
Set that against the alternatives. The Excel route looks free, but costs the export days every month that are exactly the scarcest — plus the errors that come with manual work. The BI route carries implementation and consultant costs and a lasting dependency for every change. And switching to another package because the reporting falls short is the most expensive route of all — while the new package has the same reporting limits.
The payback period is therefore practically the first month: the days of manual collection work disappear immediately, and the report gains reliability and shareability at the same time. Exact Online itself simply stays in place — the administration, the filings and the collaboration with the accountant do not change. The reporting layer comes on top, and that is exactly why this route is so much cheaper than migrating. If an administration or entity joins later, you simply connect it — the subscription grows with the structure, not the other way around. How this works for other packages sits in the overview of reporting solutions per accounting package.
Book consistently with cost centers in Exact Online — per team, location or project. The reporting tool picks up that dimension automatically, and you get a P&L per unit without extra work, with a dedicated mapping per cost center where wanted.
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The 3 most common mistakes in reporting with Exact Online
Three patterns we see again and again at Exact Online users. Each costs time or trust; each is preventable with the right setup.
Exporting and retyping every month
The monthly export-and-paste routine from Exact costs days, introduces version differences and starts over with every late booking. The model may stay — the feed has to go: a direct API connection puts the actuals in automatically every day, and the freed-up days shift to analysis and commentary.
Sharing the summarized P&L from Exact as the management report
A summarized profit and loss statement feels like a report, but misses everything management steers on: the custom layout, the budget comparison, the trends, the cash flow statement and the story. The reader drops off or draws their own conclusions — and the report loses its function as a steering instrument.
Choosing a tool that only pulls trial balances
Some tools connect Exact Online at trial-balance level: period balances only, no transactions. Then there is no click-through to the source booking, no aging analysis at group level and no clean intercompany elimination. For a report that has to be able to answer questions, transaction level is not a luxury but a requirement.
Frequently asked questions
Can't find your question? Let us know
Can I build a management report in Exact Online?
Partly. Exact Online delivers solid standard reports per administration — P&L, balance sheet, trial balance, aging analysis — but a custom reporting layout, a full budget comparison, KPI trends, a cash flow statement and a group picture across multiple administrations need supplementing through Excel, a BI tool or a reporting tool on the data layer.
Does Exact Online have a cash flow statement?
Not a full cash flow statement the way the management report asks for it: where cash came from, where it went and what the expected position is. A reporting tool on the data layer does deliver that — including a direct cash flow overview and, with multiple administrations, consolidated across the whole group.
Can I compare budgets in Exact Online?
Recording budgets is possible, at account and cost-center level, and the basic comparison works within the ledger frame. The full setup of a management report — month and year-to-date next to budget, last year and a latest estimate, in a custom layout — you build outside the package, fed by the actuals from Exact.
How do I get figures from Exact Online into Excel without manual work?
Through a 2-way sync: the actuals from Exact Online refresh in the existing Excel or Google Sheets model in one click, next to the budget columns — the structure and formatting stay untouched. The monthly exporting and pasting disappears, and the model always reconciles with the administration.
Can I combine multiple Exact Online administrations into one report?
Not within Exact Online itself — but through a reporting tool with consolidation, yes. Finstack connects every administration separately, maps to one group chart of accounts and recognizes and eliminates intercompany flows automatically, from 1 to 50 entities. The group picture and per-entity figures come from one process.
How do I share the report with management and investors?
By giving them access to the dashboards and reports in Finstack, with rights per user: every reader sees what is meant for them and can change or break nothing. That replaces the PDFs by email — and nobody needs an Exact login for it.
What does reporting on top of Exact Online cost?
Finstack starts from EUR 39 per month for the first entity, with no implementation fees. The connection with Exact Online is live in 5 minutes and the full setup typically stands within a day, managed by finance itself. The payback period is practically the first month: the export days disappear immediately.
CFO turned Founder - Finstack
Sources and provenance
- Finstack — Integrations with Exact Online and other packages: finstack.io/solutions/integrations
- Finstack — Reporting & insights (dashboards, Excel/Sheets sync): finstack.io/solutions/reporting-insights
- Finstack Help Center — Sources & connections (sync frequency, security, read-only): help.finstack.io
- Finstack — Pricing (from EUR 39/month): finstack.io/pricing
- Exact — Exact Online REST API documentation: developers.exactonline.com
- Exact — market position and product information: exact.com
Last reviewed: 28 July 2026 · Next review: October 2026
Consolidated reporting and forecasting.
