The Most-Requested bexio Features: What Became of the Wishlist

As of: August 2026 · This article is not legal advice.

Which features did bexio users request most? In the bexio ideas portal — discontinued in 2022 — automatic completion of the city from the postcode in contacts collected 511 votes and thus became the most-requested contacts idea; downloading all receipts of a financial year reached 277 votes. bexio built neither. Today both exist anyway: quintio Sync handles the receipts download into your own Google Drive — and the city autofill comes from the free browser extension “quintio for bexio”, together with two more long-standing requests from practice: the VAT return as XML for the ePortal of the Swiss Federal Tax Administration (ESTV) and the chart of accounts as a PDF.

What does the discontinued ideas portal reveal about the biggest requests?

Until 2022, bexio ran a public ideas portal at ideas.bexio.com: whoever missed a feature submitted it, others voted. Then the portal was discontinued — the wishlist disappeared from the web, the requests themselves did not. We kept the archived captures (2019 to 2022) and analysed them, already for the article about the never-built receipts download.

The pattern in the top ideas is striking: they are not exotic flagship features but small, everyday actions. At the top for contacts: idea CONT-I-41 — type the postcode, and the city should appear by itself. 511 votes, collected over years, never implemented. Anyone who has ever captured a hundred contacts knows why this inconspicuous idea gathered so many votes. And even where bexio officially shelved a request — direct electronic VAT submission sat in the portal as “Future consideration” from June 2018 — it never went beyond the label.

The city autofill as an example: from most-requested contacts suggestion to working feature — just not from bexio itself.

Why doesn’t bexio simply build these requests?

The honest answer: priorities. bexio keeps developing a large product — small convenience features compete there with accounting, banking and payroll for the same developer hours. Added to that is a structural limit: the bexio Marketplace connects third-party apps through the API, but there is no extension point inside the bexio interface. An app can read and write data — but it cannot place a button next to “Add account” and cannot add a field to the contact form.

That is exactly where a browser extension comes in: it works in your browser, on the page you already have open — and can therefore bring features to where you need them, instead of into yet another window beside it.

Which requests are fulfilled today — and by what?

Request	Ideas portal	Solved today by
Complete the city from the postcode automatically	511 votes (CONT-I-41, most-requested contacts idea)	“quintio for bexio” — free
Download all receipts of a year	277 votes	quintio Sync — mirror into your own Drive
Submit the VAT return electronically	361 votes (FIBU-I-236, “Future consideration”)	“quintio for bexio” — free
Export the chart of accounts as a PDF	57 votes (FIBU-I-358)	“quintio for bexio” — free

Both accounting requests sat in the portal too — since 2018: direct electronic VAT submission (FIBU-I-236, submitted in June 2018) reached 361 votes and even carried bexio’s own “Future consideration” label; the chart-of-accounts PDF export (FIBU-I-358, December 2018, 57 votes) stayed in the idea pool. Neither was implemented. Which is why the XML feature first began as an in-house tool in our own fiduciary practice, long before it became a public extension.

What exactly does the “quintio for bexio” extension do?

Three features, all directly in the bexio interface, all free — you only need a free quintio account:

• Postcode → city: you type the postcode, quintio completes the city from the official directory — marked, never overwriting your own input. (How it works)
• VAT as XML: download the finished return as ESTV XML instead of retyping it — as a complete declaration per eCH-0217, with a built-in consistency check against figure 500. With net tax rates and flat tax rates, the extension asks for the activity ID per client right at export. (The guide)
• Chart of accounts as PDF: print or file the entire chart of accounts cleanly typeset — portrait or landscape, columns of your choice. (The guide)

The difference in the quarterly rhythm: retyping or uploading.

It is installed in about two minutes — from the Chrome Web Store, with passwordless sign-in via email link or Google. (Step by step)

Where the extension honestly hits its limits

Naming these limits is part of the truth:

• Chromium browsers only. Chrome, Brave and Microsoft Edge from version 133 — Firefox and Safari are left out.
• Nothing works without an account. All three features are tied to a quintio account. The account is free — but signing up is a condition, and we would rather say so before than after.
• The chart of accounts export is still German-only. As of August 2026, the PDF button only appears if your bexio runs in German.
• The XML takes the retyping off your hands, not the responsibility. You still check and submit the declaration in the ESTV ePortal yourself — as before.
• quintio is independent and has no affiliation with bexio AG. The extension only reads bexio and changes nothing there.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a Chrome extension for bexio?

Yes. “quintio for bexio” adds three features to the bexio interface: postcode → city in contacts, the VAT return as ESTV XML and the chart of accounts as a PDF. It runs in Chrome, Brave and Edge and is free — all you need is a free quintio account.

Can bexio export the VAT return as XML for the ePortal?

bexio itself offers no export of the VAT return in the eCH-0217 format — the request for direct electronic submission sat in the ideas portal as “Future consideration” since June 2018. The “quintio for bexio” extension reads the finished return on the bexio page and generates from it the XML file the ESTV ePortal expects when you submit via upload.

Why does bexio not fill in the city from the postcode automatically?

With 511 votes, the feature became the most-requested contacts idea in the bexio ideas portal — it was never implemented, and the portal has been offline since 2022. The extension retrofits exactly that: type the fourth digit and the city sits in the field, completed from the official directory of localities.

Where do the vote counts in this article come from?

From our own archive of the bexio ideas portal: Wayback captures from 2019 until the discontinuation in 2022, secured and analysed in 2026. Since the portal is offline, the figures can no longer be checked live — which is why we always state them as “at the portal’s discontinuation”.

What does the extension cost?

Nothing. All three features are free; you only need a free quintio account — signing in unlocks all of them.

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The fastest route to a fulfilled wishlist: install the extension — free, set up in two minutes. And if you also want to fulfil the big receipts request: quintio Sync mirrors all bexio documents continuously into your own Google Drive — the preview is free, no credit card; if you cancel, the folder stays yours.

Sources

• bexio ideas portal (ideas.bexio.com, discontinued in 2022) — archived captures 2019–2022; idea CONT-I-41 “City automatically from postcode” with 511 votes, idea “Download of all receipts for year-end filing” with 277 votes, idea FIBU-I-236 “Submit the VAT return from bexio electronically” (28.06.2018, “Future consideration”, 361 votes), idea FIBU-I-358 “Export the chart of accounts as PDF” (06.12.2018, 57 votes)
• ESTV — net tax rates and flat tax rates
• eCH-0217 — E-VAT specification
• “quintio for bexio” in the Chrome Web Store
• Official directory of localities of Switzerland (swisstopo), the data basis of the city autofill