Marketplace sellers
Shopee · Lazada · Amazon
Settlement reports map cleanly for the regional marketplaces that export a period report; we plug the fee lines straight into the ledger.
Ledger · 01
Payout released
Straits Ledger Cloud Accounting
Every payout is settled before it is spent.
Cloud accounting for Singapore online sellers — marketplace payout reconciliation, GST treatment, and IRAS-ready records. The sale is posted when it happens. The payout when the bank confirms it.
Engagement
Monthly close, cloud ledger
Filing
GST F5 prepared, not filed blind
Channels
Shopee, Lazada, Amazon, Shopify
Books
Xero, QuickBooks, Zoho, AutoCount
What cloud accounting actually changes
A cloud ledger is not a shortcut. It is a valid record.
Cloud accounting means the ledger lives online and stays reachable from any device — which matters when your stock sits in a Tampines warehouse and your supplier is in Guangzhou. More to the point, it is the only sensible way to handle the volume an e-commerce store throws off: hundreds of order lines a month, each with a platform fee, a shipping charge, and sometimes a refund adjustment bolted on.
IRAS guidance for non-GST-registered businesses says records may be kept electronically using accounting software, and no approval is needed to do so for tax purposes. Physical copies of source documents need not be kept if the electronic records are retained properly. A well-kept cloud ledger is not a workaround for clean books — it is the bookkeeping the tax system expects.
We work in cloud ledgers, not spreadsheets held hostage on one laptop. That decision is upstream of every other choice on this page — where the sales order lives, where the settlement report lands, and who owns the trail when IRAS asks a question.
Why we sort by settlement, not by day
Posting the bank deposit as revenue is the error we correct most.
Most store owners first see their money as a lump sum hitting the bank on a Friday. That lump sum is a settlement report: gross sales for a period, minus platform fees, minus refund adjustments and shipping, minus any amount the marketplace is still holding. Your true revenue is the gross figure on the settlement report — the deposit is only the cash leg. Five rows below show the shape of one month on a Singapore store.
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Row 01 Shopee SG · week one settlement − S$ 318.40 fees Released
- Gross sales on the report
- S$ 4,120.00
- Platform commission + payment fee
- S$ 318.40
- Net deposit confirmed by bank
- S$ 3,801.60
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Row 02 Lazada SG · week one settlement − S$ 96.10 refund Released
- Gross sales on the report
- S$ 1,842.00
- Refund adjustment, same period
- S$ 96.10
- Net deposit confirmed by bank
- S$ 1,745.90
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Row 03 Amazon SG · rolling reserve Held S$ 740.00 Held
- Gross sales on the report
- S$ 2,318.00
- Rolling reserve held by marketplace
- S$ 740.00
- Not revenue yet — held, not released
- S$ 740.00
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Row 04 Shopify payout · Stripe balance − S$ 412.10 fees Released
- Gross sales on the report
- S$ 3,904.00
- Payment processor fee, multi-currency
- S$ 412.10
- Net deposit confirmed by bank
- S$ 3,491.90
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Row 05 Etsy · end-of-month settlement − S$ 188.75 fees Released
- Gross sales on the report
- S$ 1,402.00
- Listing + transaction fee
- S$ 188.75
- Net deposit confirmed by bank
- S$ 1,213.25
Sort your ledger around settlement reports and your revenue line matches the sales you can audit — not the money that happened to land that week. The three recurring failures we fix are listed below.
GST treatment for online sellers
GST is a workflow question, not a form question.
Treatment turns on facts that need an answer before the F5 return, not during it. The three supply lines below cover almost every Singapore online store — pick the one that matches the sales you are posting.
Supply line
Standard-rated
Zero-rated exports
Out of scope
Local sales delivered in Singapore
A taxable supply. GST is charged on the sale, and the tax sits in the ledger as a liability from the day the order is posted — not on the day the payout arrives. If a refund is issued after the tax was accounted for, the refund reverses the tax in the same period as the credit note, otherwise last quarter's sales figure keeps shifting under you.
The recurring trap here is timing: a December order refunded in January lands in the January return, and the December books have to be reopened to make the numbers line up. A cloud ledger handles that as one adjustment against the original entry — a spreadsheet does not.
Cross-border reverse charge
Did a reverse charge apply on imported services you used to run the store — a storefront app billed from overseas, a payment processor, an advertising platform? When a GST-registered business buys services from an overseas supplier, the buyer accounts for the tax. The line has to be posted as an imported service on the return, and the ledger must keep the supplier invoices that prove the amount. Miss the line and the F5 understates the tax due.
Registration timing
Register once turnover crosses the threshold, and keep taxable, zero-rated, and out-of-scope lines separate from the first month, not from the registration month. Sellers who are not yet GST-registered still owe IRAS clean records — that is why the ledger design question comes first for everyone, registered or not.
One figure to watch
9%
The GST rate your ledger has to hold in a separate liability line once you are registered. Post it at the order, not at the payout, or the return cannot be built from the ledger alone.
We prepare the F5 as a separate line item from the monthly accounting work, and both are listed on the pricing page rather than buried in a quote.
Read the GST and IRAS guideDo I need to be GST-registered to use cloud accounting?
No. IRAS expects clean electronic records whether or not you are registered, and no approval is needed to keep records electronically for tax purposes. Many clients start unregistered and the ledger is already in place when the threshold arrives.
My marketplace only shows a bank deposit — can it still be reconciled?
Yes, if the settlement report exists somewhere in the platform. Shopee, Lazada, Amazon and Shopify produce one. If a channel genuinely only gives a deposit figure, we mark it as a manual channel and flag the reconciliation gap rather than guess the fee.
Which ledger do you recommend?
It depends on what you sell. Xero and QuickBooks Online connect widely through apps, AutoCount Cloud Accounting suits inventory-linked workflows, Zoho Books is lighter, and Odoo Accounting makes sense when orders, stock and finance live in one system.
Where a cloud ledger fits alongside the software you already use
Match the tool to the channel list — not the other way around.
Your accounts live in a cloud ledger such as QuickBooks Online, Xero, Zoho Books or AutoCount Cloud Accounting. Each of those connects to platforms like Shopify, Amazon and Etsy to a different degree. Some channels map cleanly by app. Others — particularly regional marketplaces with their own settlement formats — need a manual import routine. We will tell you which category your store is in rather than sell the biggest stack.
Storefront builders
Shopify · WooCommerce
App connectors usually exist; where they do not, a CSV of orders and payouts keeps the trail intact.
Ledger only
Xero · QuickBooks Online
A pure bookkeeping tool fits a seller who only needs the ledger — no inventory, no order management.
Inventory-linked
AutoCount · Zoho Books
AutoCount suits stock-linked workflows; Zoho Books is the lighter option when the ledger is all you need.
One system
Odoo Accounting
Right for a seller whose stock, orders and finance data all need to sit inside the same system.
If you already pay for a stack, we will tell you plainly whether it can hold the posting rules your channels need — and if a smaller one will do.
The three things that break a store's books
Same three failures, every quarter, in a different order.
Marketplace fees posted as expenses when they should reduce revenue — which inflates your top line and makes every margin calculation wrong. Refund adjustments posted in the wrong period — so last quarter's sales figure keeps shifting. And multi-currency ledgers that convert at a rate nobody can trace back to a bank statement.
Fix the posting rules once and these stop recurring.
Leave them and you will spend the first week of every quarter rebuilding the same three reconciliations by hand — on a spreadsheet, in the dark, right before the return is due.
What a first month looks like — and what it costs
One account, three tiers, listed with what is included and what is billed extra.
You hand over read-only access to your sales channels and bank feed, plus whatever settlement reports you can export. We map the posting rules, reconcile the first full month against your bank statements, and hand back draft books with a short list of questions. If you are GST-registered, it lines up with the F5 filing window. You keep access to everything; we are not a black box that returns a number with no trail.
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Starter — one channel, under ~300 order lines
Selected- Cloud ledger set up on Xero, QuickBooks, Zoho or AutoCount
- Monthly posting of sales, fees and refunds from one channel
- Bank feed matching against settlement deposits
- IRAS-ready record retention inside the ledger
- Short monthly question list from your accounting contact
- GST F5 preparation or filing is billed as a separate line item
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Regular — multi-channel, multi-currency
On request- Everything in Starter, for a multi-channel store
- Settlement reconstruction for channels without a clean export
- Multi-currency posting with rates traceable to your bank statement
- Quarterly posting-rules review so the same error does not recur
- Draft year-end management accounts from the reconciled ledger
- Backlog cleanup charged separately, quoted before any work begins
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Custom — high volume or one integrated system
Enterprise- Everything in Regular, plus an Odoo Accounting workflow when orders, stock and finance sit in one system
- Volume-based pricing reviewed against your order-line count
- Custom posting rules for marketplaces with their own settlement format
- Quarterly review with the seller's finance contact, in person when the numbers get strange
Most sellers start with the smallest tier that fits their transaction volume and move up only when order count or channel count justifies it. You can pick a tier yourself or ask us to check your volume against it before you commit.
The scope of engagement
What is included, and who this is not for.
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Step 01
Read-only access to your channels and bank feed
You share read-only access to Shopify, Amazon, Etsy, Shopee or Lazada, and your bank's feed. We take exports of every settlement report you can pull from the platform. Nothing is edited on your side.
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Step 02
Posting rules mapped for your channels
Platform fees reduce revenue. Refunds reverse revenue in the period the credit note is issued. Multi-currency sales convert at a rate whose source we can point to on your bank statement. We write the rules down before any posting begins.
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Step 03
First full month reconciled
Sales, fees, refunds, holdbacks and the net deposit are matched against your bank statements week by week. Anything that cannot be matched is flagged on a short question list rather than guessed at.
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Step 04
Draft books and the F5 alignment
We hand back draft books with the reconciliation attached, and — if you are GST-registered — the return lined up with the F5 filing window. You keep access to everything.
Who this is not for
If you want your books filed without ever looking at them, we are the wrong engagement. We reconcile, post and prepare the return — the seller remains responsible for the accuracy of the source records, and the process assumes you can produce settlement reports and bank statements when asked.
Sellers with a decade of paper receipts in a cupboard will be pushed toward a cleanup phase first, billed separately, before any monthly work starts. We would rather say that plainly now than argue about it in month four.
Read the guide, or ask for a fit check
Two routes from here, and both are fine.
If you want to understand the mechanics first, the reconciliation and GST guides walk through settlement posting and F5 preparation line by line. If you would rather just know what it costs and whether your store qualifies for a tier, the pricing page lists each band with what is included and what is billed extra. Nothing is hidden behind a call.
Read first
Guides for the mechanics
Settlement posting, multi-currency, GST F5 preparation, and platform integrations — written for Singapore online sellers, not for accountants.
Or commit
Pick a tier, or get a fit check
See each band with what is included and what is billed extra, or ask us to check your order volume and channel list against it before you commit.
Still unsure which tier fits your store? The month-end page walks through how a single cycle runs from channel access to draft books, so you can see the work before you pick a band. How a month end runs.