Accounting Services in Singapore for Ecommerce Sellers and Growing Companies

Om Accounting keeps the books for Singapore companies and for overseas sellers supplying into Singapore, with ecommerce as our deepest specialism. We handle Shopee, Lazada, Amazon.sg and Shopify settlement reconciliation, GST records that stand up to review, inventory and landed cost, and a month-end close your Singapore corporate services provider or tax agent can file from without rebuilding it.

Singapore is a small tax system with unusually sharp edges. Two of them are moving right now. The Overseas Vendor Registration regime pulls foreign sellers into Singapore GST on goods that never used to be taxed, and the GST InvoiceNow requirement is turning e-invoicing from an option into a condition of being registered. Both are covered below in the detail they need, because both are currently catching businesses by surprise.

What we handle	Bookkeeping, marketplace settlement reconciliation, GST records and return preparation, Overseas Vendor Registration record-keeping, inventory and landed cost, payables and receivables, payroll journals, monthly management accounts, year-end file preparation
Who it is for	Singapore ecommerce sellers and DTC brands, importers and distributors, small private limited companies, and overseas sellers supplying goods and remote services into Singapore
Platforms	Shopee, Lazada, Amazon.sg, Qoo10, TikTok Shop, Zalora, Shopify, WooCommerce
Software	Xero, QuickBooks Online, Financio, A2X, Dext, Hubdoc
Key rules we work to	GST at 9 per cent, the S$1 million registration threshold, the Overseas Vendor Registration regime, GST InvoiceNow, reverse charge on imported services
Reporting	Monthly management accounts, GST working papers, channel-wise contribution, inventory and landed cost schedule, reconciliation pack
What we do not do	We are not a Singapore public accounting entity or a registered filing agent. IRAS and ACRA filings sit with your Singapore tax agent or corporate services provider

GST in Singapore: the threshold and what sits behind it

GST is charged at 9 per cent. A business established in Singapore must register once its taxable turnover exceeds S$1 million, tested both retrospectively on the past calendar year and prospectively where it is reasonably expected to be exceeded in the next twelve months. Voluntary registration below the threshold is possible and is often chosen by businesses that want to recover input tax on imports and local costs.

The prospective test is the one that trips people up. It is not enough to wait until the turnover has actually arrived. A business with a signed contract, a funding round or a launch plan that makes exceeding S$1 million reasonably foreseeable is expected to register on that basis, and late registration carries consequences including having to account for tax on supplies already made.

Voluntary registration has become a heavier decision than it used to be, for one specific reason set out three sections below: since 1 April 2026, a new voluntary registrant must have e-invoicing operational before the registration is approved. There is no grace period. Businesses that plan to register voluntarily now need to sequence the technology before the application.

Overseas Vendor Registration: the rule that catches foreign sellers

If you sell into Singapore from outside it, this is the section that matters most. Under the Overseas Vendor Registration regime an overseas supplier must register for Singapore GST where both of two thresholds are met:

Annual global turnover exceeding S$1 million, and
Annual business-to-consumer supplies of remote services and low-value goods to Singapore customers exceeding S$100,000

Both limbs have to be satisfied. A very large global business with tiny Singapore sales is out; so is a small business with concentrated Singapore sales. It is the combination that brings you in.

Low-value goods are the part most sellers have not caught up with. Goods qualify where, at the point of sale, they are not subject to customs or excise duty, are not GST-exempt, are located outside Singapore and delivered by air or post, and have a value not exceeding the S$400 import relief threshold. In other words, the ordinary parcel that used to arrive without any GST at all is now taxed at the point of sale by a registered overseas vendor.

Remote services are services with no necessary connection between where the customer physically is and where the service is performed: downloads, subscriptions, software, and a wide range of professional, educational and personal services delivered online.

Electronic marketplace operators can be treated as the supplier in place of the underlying seller where they authorise the charge or the delivery, set the terms of supply, present themselves as the supplier, or contractually accept the GST liability. Where that applies, the marketplace accounts for the GST on your supplies through its platform. It does not follow that you personally have nothing to do: your own website sales, your B2B sales and your registration position remain yours, and the split has to be visible in the ledger.

GST InvoiceNow is arriving on a published timetable

Singapore is moving GST-registered businesses onto structured e-invoicing through the InvoiceNow network, which runs on the international Peppol framework. The rollout is phased and the dates are already published, which means this can be planned rather than reacted to.

1 November 2025 — newly incorporated companies that register for GST voluntarily within six months of incorporation
1 April 2026 — all new voluntary GST registrants, whatever their incorporation date or business structure. There is no grace period: the capability must be in place before the registration application is approved
1 April 2028 — new compulsory registrants, and existing registrants with annual taxable supplies up to S$200,000
1 April 2029 — existing registrants with supplies up to S$1 million
1 April 2030 — existing registrants with supplies up to S$4 million
1 April 2031 — all remaining GST-registered businesses

The practical implication for an ecommerce business is that invoice data has to become structured and machine-readable rather than a PDF someone generated at month end. That is a bookkeeping change as much as a software one: the ledger has to be the source of the invoice, not a reconstruction of it afterwards. Businesses that already run a clean, current ledger will find this a small step. Businesses that close their books three months late will find it a large one.

Reverse charge on imported services

A Singapore business that is not entitled to full input tax credit, typically because it makes exempt supplies, has to account for GST on services it buys from overseas under the reverse charge. For most ecommerce sellers making wholly taxable supplies this does not bite, but it catches businesses with financial or property income sitting alongside the trade, and it catches groups where an overseas parent recharges management or software costs.

Because the exposure depends on the mix of supplies rather than on the size of the business, it is worth checking rather than assuming. Where it applies, the imported services have to be identifiable in the ledger, which means coding them that way from the start rather than searching for them later.

Your Shopee and Lazada payout is not your revenue

The reconciliation problem in South East Asia is, if anything, worse than on Amazon, because the regional marketplaces deduct more categories and settle on shorter, more irregular cycles.

A Shopee or Lazada payout arrives net of commission, transaction fees, service fees, seller-funded and platform-funded voucher shares, free-shipping programme contributions, shipping fees and rebates, affiliate and ads costs, and any adjustments for returns and failed deliveries. Two of those deserve particular attention. Seller-funded vouchers reduce your net revenue and belong on the revenue side, while platform-funded ones do not, and mixing them makes your discount rate meaningless. Free-shipping programme contributions are a real marketing cost masquerading as a logistics cost.

Cash on delivery adds a timing layer: the sale, the collection by the courier and the remittance to you happen on different days, and returns can reverse the whole chain after the fact. Every one of those stages needs to be visible, and the receivable from the platform belongs on the balance sheet rather than being ignored until the cash arrives. Our general approach to this work is set out on our ecommerce accounting page, and the Amazon-specific version on our Amazon seller accounting page.

Import GST, landed cost and the S$400 line

Goods arriving in Singapore above the import relief threshold attract GST at the border, payable by the importer and recoverable by a registered business as input tax where the documentation supports it. Goods at or below S$400 arriving by air or post fall into the Overseas Vendor Registration regime instead, taxed at the point of sale by a registered overseas vendor or marketplace.

That single line creates two different accounting treatments for what looks like the same shipment, and a business that ships a mixture needs both handled correctly. It also creates a genuine planning question about consignment sizes that is worth thinking about deliberately rather than discovering through a customs query.

Landed cost applies as it does everywhere: unit price plus inbound freight, duty where applicable, brokerage, prep and inbound shipping, matched to units actually sold. Sellers who expense stock purchases when the supplier is paid turn the profit and loss account into a cash flow statement with the wrong title, and no useful margin figure survives that.

Corporate tax and the filing calendar

Singapore charges corporate income tax at a flat 17 per cent on chargeable income, before exemptions. The exemption schemes matter more than the headline rate for a small company.

Start-up exemption, available for the first three years of assessment to qualifying new companies — 75 per cent exemption on the first S$100,000 of normal chargeable income and 50 per cent on the next S$100,000
Partial exemption, for companies not eligible for the start-up scheme — 75 per cent on the first S$10,000 of normal chargeable income and 50 per cent on the next S$190,000
Estimated chargeable income must be filed within three months of the financial year end, unless the company qualifies for the waiver, broadly revenue of S$5 million or less and nil estimated chargeable income
The annual return is Form C-S (Lite) where revenue is S$200,000 or below, Form C-S where revenue is S$5 million or below, and Form C otherwise, with a filing deadline of 30 November
Rebates are announced Budget by Budget and change from year to year, so the current year position should always be checked rather than assumed from last year

Our role is the accounting behind those filings, not the filings themselves. What we produce is a closed year with substantiated balances, so that the computation your tax agent prepares starts from figures that hold together.

How a month runs with us

Early in the month we collect settlements, bank feeds, gateway reports, supplier invoices and import documentation. Transactions are coded, settlements exploded and reconciled, landed cost applied, GST positions worked through including the split between marketplace-accounted and own supplies, and foreign currency revalued. A second person reviews before anything is issued, and queries come back to you as one consolidated list.

Monthly management accounts with channel-wise contribution
Balance sheet with inventory, marketplace receivables and gateway clearing accounts substantiated
GST working papers separating standard-rated, zero-rated and marketplace-accounted supplies
Inventory and landed cost schedule with foreign exchange effects shown separately
A reconciliation pack tying every settlement and payout to the bank
Aged payables and receivables

What we do, and what we do not

We do: bookkeeping and management accounts, marketplace and gateway reconciliation, GST record-keeping and return preparation, Overseas Vendor Registration record-keeping, inventory and landed cost, payables and receivables, payroll journals from your payroll provider, month-end and year-end close, and a year-end file your Singapore tax agent can work from directly.

We do not: Om Accounting is an Indian firm. We are not a Singapore public accounting entity, we are not a registered filing agent, and we do not file with IRAS or ACRA on your behalf or act as your corporate secretary. We do not audit, and we do not give Singapore tax advice. Those roles belong with your Singapore tax agent and corporate services provider, and we work alongside them rather than around them.

Data security and handover

Your accounting file stays in your own software subscription and your documents in storage you control. We work on named user accounts you can revoke at any time rather than a shared login, and documents move through your document system rather than personal email. Staff on your engagement are under confidentiality obligations and access is limited to those actually doing the work. We do not claim certifications the firm does not hold.

Who you are actually hiring

Om Accounting and Consultancy is based in Jaipur, India. The business was founded in 2017 and the professional experience behind it goes back to 2007. The team includes qualified chartered accountants and CPAs alongside CA-level accounting professionals. India is two and a half hours behind Singapore, which is the easiest working relationship we have anywhere: our whole day overlaps with yours, so a question asked in the morning is usually answered the same morning.

There is more about the firm on our about page. Our largest practice is in India, and we also serve sellers in the UAE, the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada.

Talk to us about your Singapore books

Send us a recent Shopee, Lazada or Amazon.sg settlement file and your latest GST return, and we will tell you what is being missed and what a clean close would look like. Start on our contact page.

Frequently Asked Questions

I sell into Singapore from overseas. When do I have to register for GST?

When both thresholds under the Overseas Vendor Registration regime are met: annual global turnover above S$1 million, and annual business-to-consumer supplies of remote services or low-value goods to Singapore customers above S$100,000. Both limbs must be satisfied, so a large global business with small Singapore sales is outside it, and so is a small business with concentrated Singapore sales.

What counts as low-value goods?

Goods that, at the point of sale, are not subject to customs or excise duty, are not exempt from GST, are located outside Singapore and delivered by air or post, and have a value not exceeding the S$400 import relief threshold. Above that value the goods follow the normal import route with GST accounted for at the border instead.

Shopee is already charging GST on my sales. Do I still need to be registered?

It depends on which supplies the marketplace is accounting for and what else you do. A marketplace operator can be treated as the supplier where it authorises the charge or delivery, sets the terms, presents itself as the supplier or contractually accepts the liability. Even where that applies, your own website sales, your business-to-business sales and your own registration position remain yours, and the two streams have to be separately visible in the ledger.

When does GST InvoiceNow apply to me?

New voluntary registrants have been in scope since 1 April 2026, with no grace period, meaning the capability must be working before the registration is approved. Newly incorporated companies registering voluntarily within six months of incorporation came in from 1 November 2025. From 1 April 2028 it extends to new compulsory registrants and existing registrants with supplies up to S$200,000, then progressively to larger registrants in April 2029 and April 2030, reaching all GST-registered businesses by April 2031.

I am about to register voluntarily. What should I do first?

Sequence the e-invoicing before the application, because the requirement has no grace period for new voluntary registrants. That means getting onto an InvoiceNow-ready system and making sure invoice data originates from the ledger in structured form rather than being assembled into a PDF afterwards. Doing it the other way round stalls the registration.

Why does my Shopee payout never match my sales?

Because the payout is net of commission, transaction and service fees, seller-funded voucher shares, free-shipping programme contributions, shipping charges and rebates, advertising, and adjustments for returns and failed deliveries. Recorded as one figure, all of that becomes invisible. Recorded properly, gross revenue is recognised, each deduction is booked to its own account, and the net ties back to the bank, which is the control that proves nothing was missed.

How should seller-funded vouchers be treated?

Seller-funded vouchers are your cost and reduce your net revenue, so they belong on the revenue side of the accounts where your effective discount rate can be seen. Platform-funded vouchers are not your cost at all. Mixing the two is common and it makes your discounting look either far heavier or far lighter than it is, which in turn makes pricing decisions on the platform guesswork.

Does the reverse charge apply to my business?

Only if you are not entitled to full input tax credit, which usually means you make some exempt supplies. A seller making wholly taxable supplies is generally unaffected. Businesses with financial or property income alongside the trade, and groups receiving management or software recharges from an overseas parent, are the ones that need to check properly rather than assume.

Can you file my GST return and my corporate tax return?

No. We prepare the records, the working papers and the closed accounts to the point where the return can be prepared and filed, but we are not a Singapore registered filing agent or public accounting entity and we do not file with IRAS or ACRA. Your Singapore tax agent or corporate services provider does that, and what we give them is a file that does not need rebuilding first.

How is the fee worked out?

On volume and complexity rather than hours: number of channels, transaction volume, whether inventory and imports are involved, how many currencies and entities, and whether the file is current or needs catching up. The monthly fee is fixed and agreed in advance, and any catch-up work is quoted separately so it cannot turn into an open-ended bill.