Accounting and Bookkeeping Services in Singapore – Everything You Want to Know

All business enterprises, small and big alike, must evaluate the financial health of their businesses on a regular basis.

A financial statement essentially comprised of a Balance Sheet, Profit, and Loss Account, and Cash Flow Statements. Financial statements are prepared for investors, creditors, government regulators, and management of a company and take important, timely management decisions.

The compilation of financial data and preparation of financial statements are normally done by accounting personnel in a company. Financial statements are then reviewed and audited to confirm the reliability of data used and validation of the statements in entirety.

XBRL is an extensible business reporting language used to communicate business data between a sender and a receiver. Singapore government has made it mandatory for every company to report its financial statements in XBRL format only. This format makes it easy to analyze submitted data and make forecasts on financial trends. It is a freely available global framework of accounting standards used for exchanging business information.

Corporate accounting is a special branch of accounting that deals with accounting for the companies, preparation of their final accounts and cash flow statements, analysis and interpretation of the company’s financial results, and accounting for specific events like amalgamation, absorption, etc.

Client onboarding is the process a company uses to introduce new clients online to their products or services.

They are Singapore nationals or permanent residents or holders of employment pass. You need two of them as your employees while opening a branch office in Singapore.

Each company in Singapore has to determine its own financial year-end. It is the completion of an accounting period and doesn’t need to fall on 31st December only.

Yes, it is mandatory for all companies either limited or unlimited by shares as stipulated by ACRA in June 2013.

The XRBL format has been introduced as it has major advantages over other forms of financial reporting and analysis. The benefits are easy automation, speed, reliability, and accuracy.

Corporate accounting is carried out to communicate the assets and liabilities of a firm to its shareholders. This also ensures that the business activities stay in tune with its organizational policies.

Yes, it is provided you have selected a trustworthy and reputable accounting firm.

It is an online submission of your return that your investment provides over a period of time expressed as a time-weighted annual percentage. In Singapore, the deadline for filing an annual return is within 30 days from the date of the Annual General Meeting, AGM.

Yes, it is possible to transfer money from Singapore as this city-state signed double taxation treaties with more than 50 countries. It helps businesses and individuals to avoid double taxation on their cross border income.

Yes, some tax-deductible donations are cash donations, Artifact donations, public art tax incentive schemes, shares donations, land and building donations, and computer donations.

Accounting practices need to comply with the following requirements to resume operations

• Submission of manpower details via the GoBusiness portal within two weeks of resumption of operations.
• Complying with safe management measures in accordance with safe Management requirements guidelines failing which their operations will be suspended.
• Adopt telecommuting or work from home to the maximum extent.

There is no need for accounting practices to apply for exemptions once the safe Management guidelines issued are religiously adhered to.

It is only permitted when work from home is not feasible like physical inventory checking, assessments on fixed assets, the sighting of original documents, etc. subject to the Auditor’s permission in high-risk areas.