If you watch how French auto-entrepreneurs (the equivalent of US single-member LLCs) actually run their books in 2026, one detail keeps showing up: spreadsheets. Excel and Google Sheets remain the default tool for the 1.5 million micro-entrepreneurs who don't have or don't want a paid accounting app.
This is not nostalgia. The French micro-entrepreneur regime is so simple, legally, that a single income register (livre des recettes) is enough to stay compliant. Two columns, three at most: date, client, amount. The law doesn't ask for double-entry, no chart of accounts, no general ledger. A spreadsheet does the job.
What the income register actually requires
The Code de commerce (article L123-28) and the URSSAF guidance both list the same minimum fields per row: date received, customer name, amount, payment method, and invoice number. That's it for service providers. Auto-entrepreneurs selling goods also need a register of purchases (registre des achats) but the structure is identical.
Most of the spreadsheets circulating in French freelance Facebook groups follow this layout exactly. Some add a column for the VAT-free / VAT-charged threshold tracking (37 500 EUR for services, 85 000 EUR for goods in 2026), which is where Excel starts showing its limits.
The 2027 deadline that will end Excel-only setups
From 1 September 2026, French businesses must be able to receive structured electronic invoices through a certified PDP (Plateforme de Dematerialisation Partenaire) or the public PPF portal. Emission becomes mandatory in September 2027 for B2B transactions.
A spreadsheet cannot do this. PDF invoices via email stop being a valid B2B exchange channel. The DGFiP has confirmed fines of 15 EUR per non-conforming invoice, capped at 15 000 EUR per year. For an auto-entrepreneur who invoices ten businesses a month, the cap arrives fast.
This is why the French freelance accounting market is consolidating around Indy, Abby, Tiime, and Henrri (the four players who actually shipped working PDP integrations). The transition path that most consultants are recommending is:
- Keep Excel for as long as you only invoice consumers (B2C is exempt).
- If you invoice any business, move to a PDP-connected tool before September 2026 for reception, September 2027 for emission.
- Use the migration as the moment to also drop Excel and pick a tool that does the income register, the VAT threshold tracking and the URSSAF declaration in one place.
The other reason Excel persists: URSSAF declaration is dead simple
Auto-entrepreneurs declare turnover monthly or quarterly through autoentrepreneur.urssaf.fr or the official Urssaf mobile app. The interface asks for one number: total turnover for the period. Anyone who can sum a column in a spreadsheet can do this in under two minutes from a phone.
The practical consequence is that for a solo freelancer with under 30 invoices a month, the cost-benefit of paid accounting software is genuinely thin. Indy and Abby both offer free tiers that cover most cases, which is what eventually moves people off Excel. Not the marketing, the free tier.
For a hands-on French-language walkthrough of the spreadsheet method, what to put in each column, and the 2026 / 2027 deadlines that will retire it, see this guide comptabilite Excel auto-entrepreneur. For the URSSAF mobile app comparison (the other half of the cheapskate freelance stack), see this guide application URSSAF mobile.
If you build SaaS for the European SMB market, the spreadsheet-to-PDP migration is the conversation right now in France.
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