Pennylane alternative
Pennylane is full practice production software. Comptyx is an upstream posting workstation: extraction, balanced entry, ERP export. If you want to replace your whole practice stack this is the wrong page — if you want to stop re-keying invoices, it is the right one.
The two tools are not playing the same part
The market has three layers: (1) document capture, (2) extraction, account coding and balance checking, (3) the ERP, the tax pack and client collaboration. Pennylane sells layers 1 and 3, and part of 2. Comptyx sells only layer 2, but all the way through and across six countries.
That is why a straight swap is rarely the right frame. Many firms keep their production software and put Comptyx in front of it, for the files that software handles badly.
What Comptyx does better
Six national charts maintained as backend referentials — PCG, CGNC, SKR, PGC, US GAAP, IFRS — resolved per country, never translated from a single template. This is where domestic French tools give out: a Moroccan file expects 44111000, not a three-digit approximation.
A trial that starts on its own: 30 documents or 14 days, no card and no sales call. You test on last month's real invoices before speaking to anyone.
Nine native export formats rather than one generic CSV: FEC, DATEV EXTF, Sage, ContaPlus, QuickBooks, Xero, XLSX, CSV, PDF.
The AI never picks an account. It reads the document; a deterministic engine posts from the country rules and checks the entry balances before it is shown. An unbalanced entry is held back and flagged, not published.
What Comptyx does not do — and will not do soon
No customer invoicing, no dunning or collections, no tax pack, no client collaboration portal, no continuous bank feed. Comptyx is not a French PDP and does not deliver e-invoicing compliance in that sense.
No email or IMAP collection: the flow is file upload into the workstation.
The bank journal exists only for Morocco, France, Spain and Germany. Not for the UK, the US or the UAE.
If you want one system of record for the whole practice, Pennylane remains the right frame and Comptyx is not a replacement for it.
Pricing: what is public on both sides
Comptyx publishes its grid and sells online: Solo at EUR 59 a month for 150 invoices, Cabinet at 149 for 500, Cabinet+ at 299 for 1,500, with unlimited client files from Cabinet up. The unit price falls from EUR 0.39 to 0.20 per invoice. Annual billing gives two months.
Pennylane publishes a grid for companies — plans from a few euros up to EUR 79 excl. VAT a month depending on users and volume — but prices its practice offer per client file, on quotation. We therefore publish no per-file comparison: we have no public source that would let us do it honestly. (Public sources checked September 2026.)
The benchmark that does hold up is the other one: manual data entry costs roughly EUR 1.15 per document. At 1,500 invoices a month that is about EUR 1,725 of keying time against 299.
Expense claims and receipts
Comptyx handles expense notes and receipts like any other purchase document: PDF, scan or phone photo, in batch. The entry comes out coded to the file's chart and balanced.
It is not an expense-management product: there is no employee approval workflow, no reimbursement, no spend policy. If that is what you need, a dedicated module is still required — Comptyx comes in afterwards, when the entry has to be posted.
One practical detail: French VAT on restaurants, hotels and passenger-car fuel is not recoverable. The engine leaves those amounts in the expense account gross instead of creating a 44566 that an audit would reverse.
Feeding Pennylane from Comptyx
The most common use is not replacement but supply. You post the batch of invoices in Comptyx, review it, then export a FEC or a journal CSV and import that into your production software.
Your ERP stays the system of record. Comptyx holds nothing definitive and requires no migration.
| Account | Label | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 607 | Purchases of goods for resale | 1,000.00 | — |
| 44566 | Deductible VAT on other goods and services | 200.00 | — |
| 401 | Trade payables — ACME | — | 1,200.00 |
Does Comptyx replace Pennylane?
Not for a firm using Pennylane as its production software. Comptyx replaces the posting step and is most often used alongside: you post in Comptyx, export FEC or CSV, and import into Pennylane.
What are the alternatives to Pennylane?
It depends which layer you want to replace. For full production: Cegid, Sage, ACD, Quadratus. For capture and OCR: Dext. For multi-country posting through to a balanced entry: Comptyx. The three families are not substitutes for one another.
Does Pennylane handle expense claims?
Pennylane covers spend within its production scope. Comptyx does not do the approval workflow: it turns the receipt or claim into a coded, balanced entry, and handles non-deductible VAT on meals, hotels and fuel correctly.
Can I try it without a sales demo?
Yes. Sign-up is self-serve and the trial covers 30 documents or 14 days, with no card and no prior call.
Does Comptyx handle files outside France?
That is the point of it. Six national charts are maintained in the backend: French PCG, Moroccan CGNC, German SKR, Spanish PGC, US GAAP and IFRS for the UAE.
Try it with your own invoices
14 days, up to 30 extractions, no card required — whichever limit you hit first.