Singapore Corporate Services needed by SMEs & Startups

Singapore Corporate Services needed by SMEs & Startups

Singapore Corporate Services needed by SMEs & Startups – Running a business is never easy. There are many business owners who come and go everyday. Starting up is easy, running a business is tough, keeping it profitable and making it a success is even tougher. There are many things to watch out for and the most important steps that you need to take are usually the things that you do not really have much experience in. For example, you can learn how to do sales but you might take a long time to learn marketing. You might be able to take minutes but not able to do secretarial work. You might be able to keep documents need but not able to do accounting.

Singapore Corporate Services needed by SMEs & Startups

Outsourcing your various work is becoming a very popular option in this time and age. There are many business owners who decide to start their businesses and work in fields where they provide management services for business owners who wish to save time and effort on getting this items done. Sometimes getting someone to do the outsourcing work is also a better choice because you knowing something about the necessary work might not mean you are the best person to do it. If you are not working on something day in day out you might not be aware of changes on the government end. You might not be aware that you are making a mistake and you might be fined for it. There are things that are best left to the experts who know what they are doing and do it for a living.

Below we will share the corporate services, that will help you to save precious time and effort and in term maximize your potential of making more money:


Company Incorporation Services – Incorporating a company in Singapore is as easy as just going to the ACRA website and registering a new company. All you need is the name of the company, what business you are engaging in, the details of your shareholders and the details of your directors. Everything else is well explained on the website and you just need to pay the necessary fees online and within a few minutes, you have a live Singapore company. Unless of course one of your directors is a foreigner, then you will require a Singapore Licensed Corporate Secretarial company to assist you with this incorporation process.

So why do most business owners choose to get a professional to do the company incorporation work instead?

Some of the information that the individual inputs can be mistaken and done wrongly. This is very common and this can come off as a surprise but certain sensitive items can be done wrongly by individuals who are not careful or do not know what it actually means.

Mistakes can lead to bigger legal issues in the future and you won’t want to get yourself exposed even when you incorporated a Private Limited company to limit your exposure.


Bookkeeping Services – After your company is set up and incorporated, you will start running your business. The first few things that you need to do is to have your accounting system set up and having a system of work flows in place in your business so that you can keep track of your sales and your expenses. Many business owners who are not experienced in this will make mistakes such as not having a proper system or flow in place. This causes headaches after awhile because documents can be misplaced or some information not being available. This creates the issue of mess and confusion. Having a proper accountant to assist you with monthly accounting services can be one of the few things that will help you improve your quality of life as a business owner. It can also save you time and effort as time goes by.

You will have someone who can educate you on how to send an invoice. Someone to educate you on how to issue quotations and what expenses can be included into your accounts. This helps you to improve as a business owner and the knowledge can also be useful if you wish to pay lesser taxes than you would have if you did not have a competent accountant around you.

Having all this in place and getting the bookkeeping work done monthly will ensure you have your management reports on hand when a potential investor wants to pick it up. It also means that you have a proper system of flow in place so you can make good decisions based on the updated profit and loss by the month. This is one of the most important Singapore Corporate Services.


Accounting Services – After you have your bookkeeping for your company done, at the end of the year you will need to come up with un-audited financial reports that you will have to submit to the government. For small companies there is no need to get yourself audited which saves you couple of thousands of dollars a year. This makes life for the entrepreneur a lot easier as well as auditors can take up quite a portion of your time checking on your inventory or asking you tons of questions.

Financial Report compilation is a lot easier and it involves using your bookkeeping management report to come up with something that the layman can understand in your Balance Sheet and Income Statement documents. This reports are usually submitted to the government, usually ACRA. The reports are also useful if you are trying to get a bank loan, the banks will require it. Some suppliers may request for your financial reports to decide if you are healthy in your numbers to decide if they want to give you some form of trade credit. Land lords may request for it to see if you are able to make payment for their rentals. Potential investors into your business will want to know if you are managing your business well by looking at your expense numbers and figuring out if there are ways that they can come in and help you to improve the running of your business.

This documents are useful if you have external stakeholders who wish to make decisions based on the actual figures and numbers of your business.


Corporate Secretarial Services – Every company are needed by the government to appoint a corporate secretary within 6 months of incorporation of a company. Most businesses appoint them during the first month of business. What are some of the duties and roles and work of the corporate secretary you may ask. For those who have not been in business or are just starting out, the corporate secretary is a personnel trained in the governance laws of Singapore and are placed in the company to ensure governance work are covered and done on time.

Corporate Secretaries will keep the ACRA files of all the documents you have done up since incorporation, to the change of directors and change of shareholders in place and nicely kept in a file in a office that is secure. Such data are needed by the government when they do random audits and checks through ACRA. If you do not have all this documents in place, you may face some kind of reprimand or penalties.

Corporate Secretaries also ensure that your submission deadlines to ACRA are met. Annual returns need to be filed with 6 months of your financial year end and some business owners may not be aware or may forget that this needs to be done. So having someone in place to do this will be the best for any business owner to make sure all necessary work are done.


Tax Computation & Submission Services – At the end of the financial year, after the compilation of financial report is done, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) will step in. They will require you to declare your tax returns and let them know how much taxes you are estimated to incur. Singapore has quite a simple tax system in place and this is also one of the strengths of the country. Together with a relatively low taxation percentage as compared to the rest of the world, Singapore has slowly grown into a leading financial hub.

Tax computation work is done with the amount of profits recorded. The number of years this company is live (since the first 3 years of operation, Singapore companies do enjoy some form of tax breaks and tax incentives). Tax computation will be done by the Tax experts who know where you can save on taxes and what are some of the expenses and deductibles. Once this amounts are done up and computed, you will have to get the taxation documents submitted to IRAS. IRAS will find out the final figures and do the taxation of your company accordingly.

Having someone who is familiar with the latest tax laws and updates will allow you to not only be on the right side of the law. You will also be able to save on the hard earn profits if you have your tax related work done properly by professionals. You might also avoid getting into legal trouble with IRAS if you do not pay your taxes properly and on time!


Auditing Services – Small companies are exempted from Auditing. Auditing of companies are required for business that are above SGD $10 million in revenue turnover, have more than SGD $10 million in assets or have more than 50 employees (whichever two of this criterias are met, company will not be exempted from auditing).

Auditing can cost quite a bit for businesses because a couple of audit professionals from the audit firm will have to come by your office or warehouse to check on inventory and go through your books. Their profession is to check and ensure that the amount that you have declared in your accounting figures are declared properly. They will do a check and vouch for your numbers. And therefore most auditors are extremely careful and strict because their license to practice can be on the line if the company they audited was found to have issues.

Auditors are also usually appointed for business that function within shopping malls. Some malls run their business through revenue share, so they will get auditors to vouch that the sales figure are proper and not doctored with and will take a cut of that revenue figure from the shops that are within their malls.


Payroll Services – Running a business in Singapore, likely you will have to hire someone to help you with part of the business. Either as a front line stuff for a retail business. Admin staff for paper work in the office. Sales staff for those who are out trying to get more business for the company. Or warehouse staff that are trying to keep your inventory well kept and in check.

Payroll computation and arrangements can be quite a pain especially if you have too big a number of head count. Some businesses decide to outsource this set of work so that they do not need to manage the payroll computation and preparation work. There are software and systems that can help you to save time when managing a company of hundred of people.

Payroll Services are also outsourced usually to make sure that no one person in the company knows the payroll figures of the company. Salary is a very sensitive item so this is something that might be too much to be held by one person within the company. Definitely one of the needed Singapore Corporate Services.


Office Rental Services – For most business owners, renting an office can be quite a journey. You might have a small budget and this means that you are not familiar as to where you can go to get a good deal. Finding a good location and also at a price that works for you is also something that is tough.

Finding a good location, negotiating a good price can be done by Office Rental Associates or Agents that do this for living. They are able to get the best price and find you the best deals and location when you need them to. The commissions are also usually given by the land lords so why not get your office rental journey through someone who can help you find and negotiate it for you. One of the best Singapore Corporate Services that you can use for your benefits with almost no cost.


Koh Management Pte Ltd is one of the leading Singapore Corporate Services firm in Singapore that works closely with Knowledge-Pro Pte Ltd to deliver high quality business services for Singapore companies. Visit their website at https://www.shkoh.com.sg to find out more about Singapore Corporate Services needed by SMEs & Startups.

Singapore Corporate Services needed by SMEs & Startups