Rauva Reviews 466

Demasiadas promessas, pouca concretização.

I used Rauva's LDA+ Supercharged package for 9 months. The service failed on every core promise.

What was sold vs what was delivered:

- Rauva recommended a €2 share capital LDA structure.
This was rejected by every Portuguese retail bank I
approached for 2+ years. Never disclosed as a risk.

- The banking layer (Swan) provides a French IBAN, not
Portuguese. French IBANs are rejected by Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and most Portuguese business partners. Not disclosed at sale.

- No integration with Shopify, Etsy or Amazon — my
primary sales channels. Not disclosed at sale.

- Core advisory questions about company structure and
legal obligations went unanswered for months despite
repeated follow-ups. I was paying for professional
guidance that was never provided.

When I raised these failures and requested proper advice on how to proceed, Rauva went silent — then terminated all access to my company's AT portal credentials with no transition period or handover. Years of tax records, compliance history and filing access — gone overnight.

Rauva CEO Jon Fath later acknowledged in writing:
"clear failures in communication, follow-up, and
guidance." No resolution followed.

After termination, Rauva filed the Modelo 22 (annual
corporate tax return) without consulting me about any
income or expenses. Their lawyer then called this
"an exceptional measure of goodwill." Filing without
client consultation is not goodwill — it risks an
incorrectly declared return, creating liability rather
than resolving it.

Formal complaint submitted to DECO.

TERRIBLE
Le servie client n'a aucune réactivité, ma CB a été piraté et pour autant ils n'ont rien mis en place pour sécuriser mon compte, aucune communication possible avec eux.
J'ai bien fait de fermer mon compte car après cloture je me suis rendue compte qu'encore des transactions avaient essayé d'être faites pour un total de plus de 1000€.
Je déconseille fortement, et en plus il est impossible d'avoir une compta "clean" avec les extract qu'ils proposent. Bref très mauvaise experience

Rauva over promises and under delivers. When I had the first meeting they said it was all about saving us time, All the taxes and so would be directly transferred so we didn’t have to waste time. Two years later, that still doesn’t happen, and the French bank they use seems to have issues with the frequent transfer for the Social Security I’ve set. They were responsible to create my company and created two companies instead, took forever to effectively cancel one of them. They have changed the team of accountants recently with no further introduction. The first one was reasonable, this second one’s communication is very poor. At the moment I have my account suspended because of a clients transfer just after I invoiced said client. No phone number or no one to reach for, in a day when I particularly needed my account active to pay for deliveries I’m expecting to arrive any minute. It’s almost a DIY accounting service, you upload your expenses receipt and match with the expense and classify them. When it’s time to pay for IVA, they’ll let you know how much. I’m seriously considering just changing to a “conventional” accounting service, that won’t charge me more and will be available to help me when I need instead of leaving to speak to a bot God knows till when…

I’ve used Rauva for 2 years and it’s been very reliable. Opening the account was easy, and managing expenses in one place works great.
There are minor bugs occasionally, but nothing blocking.

Where it could improve:

- Invoicing: Needs an API or bulk upload; manual entry is too slow for high volumes.
- Accountant Access: The current invite process is too complex. I end up sharing my access code because the official "give access" flow rarely works. Simple email/phone invites would be better. You don't need to share the exact information and go to a complexe process to give read and write information on the bookeeping.
- Automation: Automatic wire transfers
- AI: API ready and MCP would be huge upgrades.

Great foundation, but needs more "pro" features for bookkeeping and automation to be perfect.

The concept is great, the execution is terrible. Rauvas sole purpose is to make small business owners lives easier and for me this was the exact opposite result.

The app is buggy and has many flaws.

The company itself is so disorganised, customer service is beyond awful.

Rauva even gave us false information which has now resulted in a $hitstorm of problems.

Do not use this company.

Overall, my experience with Rauva has been positive. The platform is clean, practical, and genuinely simplifies the accounting side of running a business.

Positives:
I have appreciated how easy the platform makes expense management, and how having the accounting team integrated into the same solution eliminates the need to coordinate across multiple providers. It brings everything together in one place, which is very convenient!

Most importantly, I really value the passionate team behind Rauva. The accounting team, in particular, has been professional and competent. I want to specifically mention Isabella, who was exceptional throughout both the running and eventual closing of my company. They have been professional, knowledgeable, and gracious in their communication.

Negatives:
One honest downside is not so much Rauva’s fault as the fact that being a business owner in Portugal requires a level of experience and knowledge most people simply don’t have. At times, the process felt overwhelming. While the Rauva team helped, I would have appreciated even more proactive guidance and hand-holding through certain stages. That said, this seems to be improving (especially over the last few months), and you can sense the team is actively working on it.

Also, I occasionally ran into a few small bugs in the app. It’s something you expect with newer tech platforms, but thankfully, support responded quickly. The issues were resolved without causing any serious disruption.

There are still areas the platform can refine, but the quality of the people behind it makes a real difference.

Initially I thought Rauva was exactly what I needed. 1 year in I so regret having set up my company with them and having used the app.

Just some of the issues with the app:
- for months we couldn’t issue invoices to clients due to a bug (terrible!)
- for weeks I wasn’t able to access my accounting module at all
- now it turns out that travelling abroad fully blocks access on the desktop app

The amount of time I have spent troubleshooting with support… and new problems keep coming up and increasing

The accounting quality was horrific and their „advice“ (changing every month btw) nearly costs me tens of thousands of euros if I wouldn’t have gotten an external tax attorney to check it.

Be careful! Each meeting the accountants were contradicting themselves and came unprepared and like they don’t even know what I am doing.

When I looked into adding PR consulting to my marketing services they said „yeah if you are adding a new line of service for a different target group you need to start another second company.“ that is BS and the confidence with which it’s delivered is dangerous!

This caused me SO much stress and agitation. They might do basic accounting but they will not give you proper tax advisory from an attorney or even recommend that as an add-on service.

The accountants are not informed how to reduce your taxes and it’s actually illegal for them to give you tax advice (you need a tax attorney for that).

You might pay less for the accounting short-term but you will likely pay 5x long-term.

I now have to pay a proper accounting firm to review all the work done by the various accounting firms at Rauva because I do not trust it at all.

If their accounting is even 30% as unreliable and messy as their „consultations“ and app - I dread the corrections / reviews from the Portuguese government (which only happen 4 years after)

I really wish this would work but after a year of stress and no visible improvements I have switched accountants and now will have to switch banks as well

I am glad though that finally the reviews are reflecting my experience and crowding out the fake reviews that led me into this mess!

P.S. after a complaint I was moved to Census accounting and overall they are better than the other Rauva accountants but I still would not risk continuing with this

I run a Portuguese startup and cannot pay my payroll taxes through Rauva's system. Their international IBAN doesn't work with the Portuguese tax authority's payment system.

When I contacted support, they suggested alternative payment methods. I tried them - they didn't work.

THE RESULT: I'm now receiving fines from Autoridade Tributária because my payroll taxes remain unpaid. These fines are accumulating while Rauva remains unresponsive.

SUPPORT RESPONSE: I've been waiting approximately one month for a meaningful response to this critical issue. Multiple messages sent. No solution provided.

THE CORE ISSUE: A Portuguese business banking provider that cannot facilitate payroll tax payments is fundamentally broken. Meeting payroll obligations is legally required, and Rauva's system makes this impossible.

If you're considering Rauva for your Portuguese business and plan to have employees, be aware you may not be able to pay your payroll taxes through their system, and their support may not help when problems arise.

I was so excited to find such a cool Portuguese startup. After reading a couple of positive reviews and seeing the rating, I went to register... Guys, your service doesn't work at all during the registration process, and the logic is flawed!

1. You say you'll register a company, but you ask for the name of the registered company! Have you tried to think outside the box?

2. Okay, I want to register as a freelancer, but I get an error saying I'm already registered, but nothing works and it asks for Complete Setup. But I can't because my NIF is supposedly already registered. So what?!

3. I contacted support, but they told me you don't offer any services yet! What services? Company registration or everything?

It feels like your startup is failed!

I made this Trustpilot account just to give them a 1-star.

It started good, 18 months ago, but as time passed they just got worse and worse.

From incompetent accountants to suddenly changing payment structure an starting to charge more.

And their app is bugging all the time. It's absolutely crazy that this can be a legit banking company.

And as many of the negative reviews say, the good reviews are most likely fake

I’m at a loss for where to begin. They made many promises and set high expectations but everything fell apart on the date I paid for company registration and their services. The only service that works in Rauva is their charging service which directly debits your account. Even after terminating all the services I still received invoices by email.

Instead of helping, they drag you down with endless problems.

Avoid at all costs.

I had a intro call that was super friendly end everything. Afterwards I looked through some of the online reviews and realised that I did not want to take a risk on some of the things that were pointed out by people that worked with RAUVA.
Since then I receive weekly "reminders" to sign the contract - even though, I have, multiple time explained that I wont work with them and asked them to stop spamming me. Very annoying and quite unprofessional.

Big promises, a disastrous service.

Lies about company formation timelines, response times, and the completion of legal and accounting tasks.

They will lie to you about everything. Nothing will be clear. No one will care about your situation. The charming smiles and grand promises at the beginning will quickly be replaced by emptiness, silence, and disillusionment. Opaque processes. Inability to provide clear answers about anything. Contradictory messages. Accountants will send you to customer support, and support will send you back to the accountants—until you’re left with nothing but your tears.

You will lose time. You will lose money. You will lose energy. Entrepreneurship is already hard enough—don’t make it even more difficult by dealing with these incompetent people. They will promise to respond within 4 hours but will take 4 months—if you're lucky.

If you have even the slightest love and pride for your business, protect it and stay away from Rauva. Even if you make the effort to speak Portuguese, you will face issues with them every single day.

They lie about their Trustpilot reviews: after the very first onboarding meeting, the accountant slyly slips you a review link, supposedly to evaluate the onboarding session, when in reality, it leads to Rauva’s main review page. Look at many other reviews—you’ll often see mentions of just one meeting and one person, because they only refer to that first session with the accountant, which always goes well since it’s filled with big promises. They have to deceive their clients (what a nice welcome gift!) just to get positive reviews.

One positive point, however: Rauva provides an excellent example of what NOT to do in business. If you want to build a successful company, just take a close look at everything Rauva does—and do the exact opposite. You’ll be on the right path!

Our experience was deeply disappointing from start to finish. From company name needing to be changed, to the virtual address provided being incorrect, our case was abruptly dropped midway through the process without explanation or any opportunity for resolution.
Furthermore, we were charged excessively to correct errors that were entirely of their own making. These costs escalated quickly, as mistakes seemed to be a recurring theme throughout the engagement. Based on our experience, I would strongly advise others to proceed with caution or not at all.

Absolutely terrible app. Basic functionality doesn't work, critical functions such as transfers are full of bugs, monthly opening and closing statements don't match. I'm shocked they released this to the public and it's even worse considering this is for business critical functions of small businesses.

Not having a PT IBAN is also crazy considering this is aimed at PT consumers, it completely limits the ability to make/accept payments for services using the MB system.

The amount of positive reviews on this website is also extremely suspect in my opinion. If you value reliability in your banking application, avoid this company.

Terrible experience, disorganised service and repeated mistakes

I’ve been a Rauva customer for over 2 years, and it has been one of the most frustrating service experiences I’ve ever had. From the very beginning, I was constantly assigned new accountants who had no knowledge of my situation or previous discussions. The same basic questions (like my NISS number) were asked over and over again, even though I had explained my situation multiple times.

On top of that, there’s been a persistent “missing evidence” bug in their system for more than a year, which caused endless confusion both for me and their accountants. Instead of fixing the issue, I kept getting contradictory messages and unclear instructions. It left me with the continuous feeling that something was wrong with my accounting.

Despite repeatedly flagging these problems, nothing changed. The communication was poor, inconsistent, and often dismissive of the actual issues I raised. I even tried to cancel my subscription months ago but was persuaded to stay after being promised things would improve, they didn’t.

For a service that charges a high monthly fee, the level of professionalism and support is extremely disappointing. I’ve never felt less confident in the accuracy of my accounting, and the experience caused unnecessary stress and wasted time.

I do not recommend Rauva to anyone who values clarity, consistency, or reliable customer support.

Dear RAUVA Team,

Thank you for reaching out.
My overall experience with your service has been positive.

Uma experiência frustrante. Aderi a Rauva pelo conceito de empresa menos burocrática, ágil e com suporte, buscava algo fora do convencional para tratar dos assuntos da empresa numa única plataforma, tenho passado por muitos transtornos com a equipa de contabilidade, há erros nos cálculos dos recibos e isso impacta diretamente na incidência dos impostos e pagamentos de salários. Já não vou mencionar outros transtornos que tive desde o início, pois disseram-me que eu " criei expectativa", comprei um conceito e estou a lidar com outra proposta, esta é a minha avaliação nesse momento. Não recomendaria pela a aminha experiência.