Accounting Software Singapore IRAS Approved and GST Compliant

Understand your Business Processes and Needs

It is important that business owner initiate a review on their business processes and map out the requirements of different business units and the departments that will impact the financial reporting. The followings are some of the points to consider:-

Introduction on Accounting Software in Singapore

There are so many accounting software that were developed in the past decade some companies went through merger and acquisition, transformation and re-branding (e.g. MYOB had been rebrand as ABSS) to acquire more market presence. In general there are 3 main categories of accounting software namely  basic, intermediate and advance accounting software.

Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore requirement compliant

GST Compliant – All the companies in Singapore must comply with the tax declaration and GST filing requirements. If you are GST registered, the invoicing system must be available to produce the Tax Invoice as per the Goods & Services Tax (GST) requirements. When you select the accounting software, it is important to check that it is GST compliant for invoicing. Most of the good accounting software will automate the GST computation function and able to generate the GST Form F5 and Form 7.

Corporate Tax Compliant – Your company tax declaration to IRAS require time and effort to tabulate to ensure all taxable and non-taxable elements are properly tabulated and reviewed in order to provide an accurate declaration to IRAS. An easy way out for many business owners and sole proprietors will hire an accountant to assist them on tax matters which is costly and time-consuming. To save cost and time, some of the accounting software is offering the function to generate the Corporate Tax Form C/S.  

What are the 8 Key Features of Accounting Software?

In general, most businesses require the eight key features to have a complete accounting software solution, but there are some small businesses that only requires 3 out of the 8 features. Some of this features can be bundle into the basic accounting module but most of them are add-on to cater for your business needs.  

Core Accounting Module – This is the basic mandatory component of any accounting software, ensure that this module provides features including general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, fixed assets, cash book and bank reconciliation. This module is the most basic plan that an accounting software will offer sometimes it will be given away as a free 30 days trial and you need be on board for their paid subscriptions after the trial period

Billing & Invoicing module – this module can be integrated as part of the basic core accounting module or come as a separate component. The main function of this module allows automating routine customer billing. Billing & Invoicing varies by industry based on payment agreement terms, industry standards and practices and scale of the business operations.

Fixed Asset Module – This feature can be an add-on module or comes together as a bundled with core accounting software. Fixed asset function allows you to manage financial information on important company assets, reconciled to the cost and accumulated depreciation balances on the general ledger balance for each fixed asset class. This is a critical module especially if the business has different assets class and a lot of assets in different forms ( i.e. property, plant, and equipment). Otherwise, a bundled fixed asset may suffice.

Budget & Forecasting Module – This module is often packaged as an add-on component, it enable you to make an estimated forecast on the next year’s budget based on historical data and sales targets achieved. This independent module allows consolidation on different departmental budgeting and forecasts for an overall company estimates, but when it comes together as a bundled feature, it usually allows a single budget and forecast tool.

Basic Inventory Management– This module is often packaged as part of the basic core accounting module or come as a separate component to manage inventory. The module allows you to manage the basic inventory activities e.g. the storage warehouse location, inventory movement of products to maintain optimal stock level. This module allows you to track orders, sales, and deliveries. You need to add on this module if you require a more specific inventory system and tools to manage inventory from the multi-location warehouse, specific storage location, calculate stock depreciation if your business has a low shelf-life product lifecycle.

Basic Payroll System Module – This feature can be an add-on module or comes together as a bundled with core accounting software. It allows you process employee payrolls, automatically calculate CPF contributions, overtime, withhold and pay taxes. The key feature of this function is the creation of an automated reminder when to issue government payments to avoid penalties.

Project Accounting Module – This feature normally is an be add-on module but sometimes it comes together as a bundled with core accounting software. This module will be very useful for businesses with project-oriented operations like renovations, construction and manufacturing plant. This module allows costing and estimation of overheads, labor, materials, and equipment and progress payment. Project accounting solutions can be a very simple system that can manage a single project at a time or complex solutions for multiple and simultaneous but interrelated projects.

Fund Accounting Module – This feature normally is an add-on module cater for nonprofits organizations and government agencies, which have a separate set of financial reporting requirements. Features include tracking donation expenditures; grant management; and Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) regulations.

Better Business visibility and transparency

By using accounting software, live data and dashboard information is being transmitted and communicated to the predefined users level of access. This information is important to business owners, managers and stakeholders to evaluate the financial performance of the organization and make better business decisions with the financial information.

Increase Efficiency

When using accounting software or program, the company is required setting rules, guidelines and procedures for users in order to reduce job duplication and redundancy with proper documented procedures, process flow and well define rules or guidelines.

Control function can be set to send alert to the management for credit control and automate some of the routine functions like generating statement of accounts, reminder to customers.

Increase Accuracy

Check and balance system with business objective set and work schedule is according to the business plan.

Better cash flow management and reduced waste.

e.g. Stock and Inventory Management System where MOQ are pre-defined for your procurement department to make a purchase. This is especially important for food products with short shelf life or materials with a short product life cycle. 

Higher Productivity

Sales and inventory level can be captured in a real-time manner and invoice can be auto-generated that actually reduced time and manpower you spent on accounting and tax (GST) compare to a manual system using excel spreadsheet.