Client types
Professional services firms we look after
Our clients earn their money from expertise, billed by the hour, the project, or the retainer. That one fact shapes what their accounts have to show.
Talk about your firm
- Telephone
- +65 6236 9283
- [email protected]
- Office
- 16 Raffles Quay, #30-01 Hong Leong Building, Singapore 048581
- Hours
- Mon–Fri 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM · Sat 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Who sits at the desk
The firms we see most weeks
We work almost entirely with fee-earning practices rather than product businesses. A firm that sells expertise has a different ledger from a firm that ships boxes: work in progress sits on the books, revenue follows the engagement rather than the calendar, and a single month can look nothing like the month before.
The sections below describe the practices we support in Singapore and the specific shape each one gives to bookkeeping, GST, payroll and management reporting. If your firm is on the list, what follows will describe familiar problems.
What the ledger has to show
- Client money kept separate from firm income, reconciled monthly
- Revenue recognised by engagement or stage, not by invoice date
- Direct costs matched to the project they belong to
- Aged debtors current, so a slow payer is visible early
Client types we look after
Seven shapes of fee-earning practice, each with its own way of earning.
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Law firms and legal practices
Client money held in a trust account is not firm income, so the ledger keeps trust and office strictly separate; conveyancing disbursements are tracked individually and reconciled monthly.
Trust ledger + office ledger, reconciled separately
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Management and technology consultancies
A few large clients on retainer plus project work that starts and ends unpredictably; revenue recognition follows the engagement, and subcontractor costs are matched to the project they belong to.
Reporting by engagement, costs beside revenue
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Design, architecture and creative studios
Fixed fees with staged billing mean the amount invoiced in a month has little to do with the work done in it; supplier costs for printing, fabrication and photography are tracked against each job.
Revenue against project stages; job costing
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Marketing, PR and communications agencies
Retainers, media spend passed through to clients, and freelance support that moves with the pitch calendar; pass-through costs stay identifiable so they are never read as margin.
Pass-through split out; aged debtors kept current
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Recruitment and executive search firms
Income arrives in lumps tied to placements, invoiced on completion or across a guarantee period; the management report becomes the most useful document the firm has, and payroll coordination matters.
Placement revenue, accruals, aged debtors
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Accounting, tax and corporate secretarial practices
Practices in adjacent fields that need their own books kept and reported; we work on the ledger and the management reporting, never on their client work or their statutory sign-offs.
Documented scope, monthly close, defined boundary
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Firms with unusual structures
Partnerships drawing at different times, a Singapore entity with a regional affiliate, a practice that converted from a sole proprietorship mid-year — not unusual to us, though they need more setup work.
Partner current accounts agreed at onboarding
A back-office desk on a Tuesday morning
The same ruling, whichever trade you bill in
A law firm, a design studio and a search firm do not share a business model. What they do share is the shape of a working ledger: work in progress waiting to be billed, direct costs that belong to a named job, GST on the quarter, and a partner or founder who needs a report they can trust before they make a decision.
We keep the books on Xero or QuickBooks Online, close the month, and hand back a management pack written for the person running the practice rather than for an auditor. Bookkeeping, GST returns, payroll coordination, migration and management reporting all sit on the same monthly rhythm, so you know what arrives and when.
See our accounting servicesTrust account, reconciled
Work in progress, aged
Month-end, closed
A firm that bills by the hour
Time, then invoice
- What the ledger tracks
- Unbilled time, disbursements, trust balances
- Where it gets hard
- Work in progress older than the invoice run
- What we report
- Practice-level income with aged WIP by client
- Cadence
- Monthly close, quarterly GST
A firm that bills by the project
Stage, then invoice
- What the ledger tracks
- Project stages, pass-through costs, subcontractors
- Where it gets hard
- A month's billing that doesn't match the month's work
- What we report
- Job-by-job revenue beside the costs it carries
- Cadence
- Monthly close, quarterly GST
Where our work stops
Bookkeeping is a boundary, not a takeover
Some of our clients are themselves professional services firms in adjacent fields. There is an obvious question about independence there, and the answer is a clear division of work: we keep the ledger and the management reporting, and we do not touch client work or statutory sign-offs. Your appointed professionals stay your appointed professionals.
Engagements are documented, scoped and scheduled. If a question before us needs a qualified opinion, a tax ruling or a legal reading, we say so and stop at the line.
A practice asks before they hand over the books
3
Sentences that answer it, every time. The scope of a bookkeeping engagement, the boundary at sign-off, and who stays responsible for the client relationship.
- We keep
- The ledger, the reconciliation, the management report, and the quarterly GST return.
- We do not touch
- Client engagements, statutory audit, tax filings signed by another professional, or the corporate secretarial register.
- You keep
- Your client relationships, your engagement letters, and the judgement calls only the practice can make.
Said on the first call
When we are not the right fit
A different discipline entirely
If your firm is a product company, an e-commerce business, or a startup working toward a fundraise, our setup is probably not what you need. Fundraising reporting and inventory accounting are different disciplines from the one we run.
Already clean and on time
If your bookkeeping is already clean, current and reported on time by someone you trust, changing provider costs more than it saves. We would rather say so on the first call than three months into an engagement.
If neither of those is you, an introductory call is the fastest way to know whether your firm fits the way we work. Bring last quarter's management pack and a sense of what you would like to see in it.
Say hello before the busy season
Ask about your firm
Tell us what you bill, how you bill it, and where the line between trust money and firm income falls. We will answer on the first call, and we will say plainly whether your setup fits the way we work.
Singapore Cloud Ledger Pte. Ltd. · 16 Raffles Quay, #30-01 Hong Leong Building, Singapore 048581 · +65 6236 9283