Tiime vs Indy vs Shine: which accounting tool for a French freelancer in 2026?

You are a consultant, developer, designer or trainer working in France, either as a micro-entrepreneur, as a sole trader taxed on actual profits (entreprise individuelle "au réel"), or through a single-member EURL or SASU company. Three names come up as soon as you look for a tool to invoice, track your account and prepare your filings: Tiime, Indy and Shine. They do not do the same job. Since 1 September 2026, one more criterion applies: your tool must let you receive your suppliers' electronic invoices.

Quick answer. Tiime, Indy and Shine are all on the French tax authority's (DGFiP) official list of approved e-invoicing platforms and let you receive electronic invoices, mandatory for every business since 1 September 2026. Only Indy produces your filings itself (Urssaf, form 2035, corporate tax return) from €180 excl. VAT a year; Tiime and Shine leave filings to a chartered accountant (expert-comptable).

This article compares the three tools for a freelancer working alone. If you are rather weighing Tiime against Pennylane for an established small business, read our Tiime vs Pennylane comparison for freelancers and small businesses. If your question is about online accounting firms, see Pennylane, Dougs or Indy, and for the banking choice alone, our analysis of Qonto, Shine or a traditional bank.

Method: the prices below were taken from the three publishers' pricing pages on 26 September 2026, excluding VAT, for a freelancer with no employees. The firm has no affiliate relationship with these publishers. Prices change often: check them before you subscribe.

Tiime, Indy and Shine differ mainly in what they file on your behalf. Indy is accounting software that produces and e-files your returns. Tiime is an invoicing and bookkeeping-preparation tool designed to work alongside a chartered accountant. Shine is first and foremost a business account, with invoicing and accounting exports, but it does not produce tax returns.

All prices are excluding VAT.

Our view#

Comparing these three tools on the monthly price alone is misleading. The real question is: who signs your returns? With Indy, you do, assisted by the software. With Tiime and Shine, a chartered accountant does, and their fees come on top of the subscription. For a micro-entrepreneur, the difference matters little, because the obligations are light. For a sole trader taxed on actual profits or a company subject to corporate tax (impôt sur les sociétés, IS), it changes everything, both in cost and in responsibility.

Yes, Tiime, Indy and Shine all appear on the list of operators "meeting all conditions, including interoperability tests" published by the DGFiP on impots.gouv.fr (page updated on 22/09/2026). The list included 150 definitively registered platforms on the date we checked it.

This matters in practice. According to entreprendre.service-public.gouv.fr (page checked on 11 August 2026), every business must be able to receive electronic invoices since 1 September 2026; the obligation to issue them applies to SMEs and micro-businesses from 1 September 2027. The timetable comes from Article 91 of the 2024 Finance Act (loi n° 2023-1322 of 29 December 2023).

Micro-entrepreneurs are not exempt. The DGFiP points out that businesses under the VAT exemption threshold regime (franchise en base de TVA) remain taxable persons, even though they do not charge VAT, and are therefore subject to the obligations to receive and issue e-invoices. Our article on the receiving obligation from 1 September 2026 sets out the steps.

Points to watch#

• One main platform. Receiving supplier invoices on three tools at once muddies your audit trail. Choose one receiving platform and stick to it; our guide to choosing an approved platform helps you decide.
• Receiving is not bookkeeping. Receiving an invoice in the right format does not categorise it or calculate your deductible VAT.
• Issuing in 2027. You can still issue invoices freely until 1 September 2027, but the new mandatory details (customer's SIREN number, delivery address if different, nature of the transaction, option to pay VAT on invoicing where relevant) have applied since 1 September 2026, according to service-public.

Indy is cheaper as soon as you need returns produced by the tool, because Tiime does not produce returns and therefore requires an accountant's fees on top. Tiime remains the cheapest way to invoice and receive invoices without paying anything, thanks to its Free plan. The right calculation is a total annual cost, not a headline price.

The table below uses annual prices excluding VAT, as displayed on 26/09/2026. Accounting firm fees are not quantified: they depend on the engagement letter, the volume of documents and the complexity.

Two remarks. First, the Indy and Shine prices shown "per month" correspond to annual billing: on monthly billing, Indy's micro Premium rises to €19 and Shine's Start plan comes to €132 over a year. Second, the subscription is a deductible expense for businesses taxed on actual profits, which lowers its net cost without eliminating it.

Trade-off#

For a micro-entrepreneur, the real gap is between €0 and €180 a year: paying for Indy Premium makes sense if you want to hand over the calculation and e-filing of your Urssaf returns (Urssaf is the body collecting social contributions) and threshold monitoring. For an EURL or SASU, compare €588 of software, where you remain solely responsible for the tax return, with an invoicing tool subscription plus an accountant's engagement. The price difference buys review, advice on your pay and a professional signature.

Shine does banking and bookkeeping preparation, not accounting in the sense of annual accounts. Its help centre says so plainly: even with its tools, Shine does not replace your accountant, does not produce financial statements and does not submit tax returns to the authorities.

What Shine does well:

• a business account with a French IBAN, cards and sub-accounts depending on the plan;
• an invoicing tool included in every plan, with receipt of electronic invoices;
• receipt capture with VAT detection, unlimited accounting exports and dedicated access for your accountant;
• a social contributions estimator for micro-entrepreneurs.

Shine therefore suits the freelancer who wants a simple business account and entrusts filings to a firm, or the micro-entrepreneur who declares turnover directly on the Urssaf website. It does not suit someone who wants a tool that prepares form 2035 or the corporate tax return.

No, Tiime does not file the VAT return itself. According to its accounting page, your accountant prepares the legal returns (VAT, balance sheet, income statement, tax return) on Tiime Expert, using the data from your workspace and approved platform. Tiime lays the groundwork: sales, purchases, receipts, bank reconciliation.

This is a deliberate design choice. Tiime is built as a tool shared between the business owner and their firm, with a stated network of 3,000 partner firms. If your firm is not a partner, Tiime says you can invite it free of charge to access your data. For a detailed presentation of the tool, see our Tiime tool page.

For a VAT-exempt micro-entrepreneur, the question does not arise: no VAT return is filed. It becomes central once you exceed the exemption thresholds or opt into VAT; our article on the VAT exemption threshold regime explains this switch.

Yes, Indy offers dedicated plans for property companies (SCI, taxed under income tax or IS) and for furnished rental landlords (LMNP), with a Premium plan at €24/month (€288 a year) and an accountant option from €63/month. However, the publisher states that it does not cover professional furnished rentals (LMP), farming or companies taxed under income tax, and caps its IS company plan at €254,000 of turnover for services and €840,000 for sales of goods.

This goes beyond the freelancer's scope: if you also hold property, our comparison of SCI and LMNP accounting software goes further.

The right tool depends on your tax regime before it depends on your interface preferences. The table below turns our view into decisions.

If you are still unsure about the regime itself, the micro-business thresholds for 2026 are €83,600 for services and €203,100 for the sale of goods, according to service-public; our article on micro-business ceilings and rules in 2026 explains what happens if you exceed them.

A micro-entrepreneur does not need an accountant with Indy: their obligations are limited to declaring turnover, keeping a sales ledger (and a purchase register for sales of goods), and invoicing correctly. For a sole trader on actual profits or a company subject to IS, Indy lets you do without one legally, but you remain solely responsible for every entry and every box of the tax return.

In practice, an accountant becomes necessary again in these situations:

• Company subject to IS. Choosing between salary and dividends, the director's social contributions, shareholder current accounts, approval of the accounts: the tool executes, it does not advise. Our analysis of opting for IS as a sole trader or EURL illustrates these trade-offs.
• Complex VAT. Foreign clients, reverse charge, multiple rates, mixed activity: a badly configured automatic categorisation repeats itself over hundreds of transactions.
• Mixed-use expenses. Vehicle, home office, equipment used partly privately, depreciation: this is where tax reassessments start.
• Change of regime. Leaving the micro regime, switching to IS, setting up a company: the first financial year locks in choices that are hard to undo.

The underestimated risk#

The risk with automated tools is not the one-off error, it is the systematic error. A wrong categorisation rule, for example a personal subscription booked as a business expense, applies every month without anyone reviewing it. A tax audit covers several financial years: the error multiplies accordingly. An annual review by a professional generally costs less than correcting it afterwards.

In practice#

Before choosing, go through this checklist:

1. Write down your exact regime: micro BNC or BIC, actual profits BNC (form 2035), actual profits BIC, IS.
2. Check that the tool covers that regime on the publisher's page, especially for BIC on actual profits.
3. Choose your approved receiving platform and check that it appears on the impots.gouv.fr list.
4. Calculate a total annual cost: subscription, bank fees beyond the quotas, any accountant's fees.
5. Test the export: the accounting entries file (FEC) and your receipts must be retrievable if you switch tools.
6. Decide who reviews your accounts each year, even if nobody signs them.

If you are unsure how to declare non-commercial income, our guide to form 2035 in 2026 goes through the form box by box.

• Tiime, Indy and Shine are three approved platforms on the DGFiP's official list: each lets you receive electronic invoices, mandatory for every business since 1 September 2026.
• Indy is the only one of the three that produces and e-files your returns (Urssaf, form 2035, corporate tax return); it does not cover sole traders on actual profits under BIC.
• Tiime and Shine leave filings to a chartered accountant: their total cost includes the accountant's fees.
• For a micro-entrepreneur, a free plan is often enough; for a company subject to IS, advice matters more than software.
• Compare a total annual cost and check prices on the publishers' websites, as they change often.