Comparison
Outturn vs building reconciliation in-house
Last reviewed:
Building one check is easy; running dozens of them for years, with tariff versions, evidence and follow-up, is the expensive part. A spreadsheet or a small script can compare two exports. What costs time is everything around it: changing formats, evidence a claim will accept, and proof that the money came back.
Side by side
| Need | Spreadsheet or macros | Own IT project | Outturn |
|---|---|---|---|
| First comparison | Hours | Weeks to months (estimate; depends on scope and team) | First check run on the first confirmed import |
| Number of checks | What one person maintains | What the team builds | More than 40, in six workers |
| Tariff and rule versions by date | Manual | You build versioning | Built in; each rule cites its source |
| Evidence (file, row, hash, time) | Usually lost on copy-paste | You build it | Kept for every figure |
| File format changes | Breaks silently | You build drift detection | Connection marked as drifted; nothing written until a person re-approves |
| Follow-up and approvals | You build workflow | Case, owner, approval, re-check, confirmation | |
| Verified result | Not tracked | You build it | Built in |
| Cost | Staff time | Team cost plus maintenance | €390 or €990 per month excl. VAT |
Estimate your in-house cost with your own numbers
Fill these in rather than guessing:
- Hours per month someone spends reconciling exports today × hourly cost.
- Hours to build each automated check × the number of checks you need.
- Hours per year to maintain each check (tariff changes, format changes).
- Hours per claim to re-assemble evidence.
Compare the yearly total with Outturn's price on the pricing page.
When in-house is the right choice
- The checks you need are unique to your business and stable.
- You have a data team that will own them for years.
When Outturn is the right choice
- You need many checks quickly, with evidence and follow-up built in.
- You do not want reconciliation to depend on one person's spreadsheet.
- You want to try it on your own data before deciding: the 14-day trial needs no card.
Honest limits
- Outturn covers the checks in its rule registry; a check unique to your business may still need to be added as a rule.
- Tariffs other than those already published as rules (for example LTG Cargo and the Klaipėda port infrastructure charge) must be added before they can be recomputed.
Related
Try the check on your own data
Start a 14-day free trial without a card, or send up to 3 months of rail carrier statements for the free billing check: a written report in 5 working days.
Frequently asked questions
- Can we do this in Excel?
- Yes, for one check, one month and one person. Spreadsheet reconciliation works until the person who built it is away, a file format changes, a tariff changes mid-year, or a claim needs evidence of exactly which row produced which figure.
- When does building it in-house make sense?
- When you have a stable in-house data team, the checks are unique to your business, and you are ready to maintain tariff versions, evidence trails and follow-up workflow yourself for years.
- How much does Outturn cost compared to building?
- Outturn is Starter EUR 390 per month or Growth EUR 990 per month excluding VAT, with a 14-day free trial without a card. Your in-house cost depends on your team's rates and scope; the list on this page helps you estimate it with your own numbers.
Sources
- Outturn pricing: https://outturn.eu/en/pricing (accessed 2026-10-06)