Singapore: Growing from strength to strength

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Small businesses are the backbone of every economy around the world. In Singapore, they make up 99% of all businesses, employ 65% of the country’s total workforce and contribute 48% of Singapore’s GDP. The opportunity for Xero to transform the lives of SMEs across Singapore, and around the region, is one that we hold close to our hearts.

I have lived in Singapore for nearly four years, and I have witnessed the incredible transformation of local accounting and SME communities in that time. This has been underpinned by strong government support for digitalisation. I am incredibly proud of the work Xero has done in championing that progress to help businesses become more competitive and resilient, and continue to grow and thrive amidst uncertainty.

Since opening our Singapore office in 2016, Xero has invested heavily in enhancing our product suite for our Singapore customers. This has included iterating and improving our core accounting suite, while building out a robust ecosystem of financial and app partners across our small business platform. Over the last four years, we have enabled:

Majority bank feed coverage across Singapore SME banks, as well as the addition of financial partners in the areas of payments, lending and digital banking
Singapore GST capability; automating the process of GST calculation for IRAS’ Form 5 requirements
The inclusion of Hubdoc into Xero business editions. Hubdoc is a superior data capture, extraction and processing technology that helps you save time and reduce manual work
PEPPOL e-invoicing; compliance with IMDA’s InvoiceNow initiative
The addition of Singapore-based apps in the areas of compliance, payroll, payments, point-of-sale and practice management

Additional product developments for partners:

Singapore Report Templates; making it easy for you to generate financial statements that are compliant with Singapore financial reporting standards
Singapore Chart of Accounts templates; saving you time when onboarding new clients into Xero

Introducing Singapore Dollar billing in Xero

Off the back of exceptional demand, and as the first of many highly-anticipated product enhancements to be announced this year, we’re excited to bring localised billing to our Singapore-based partners and customers this July.

By billing in SGD, we will be able to offer Singapore businesses the confidence that comes with having certainty over the monthly cost of their Xero subscription. From 14 July 2021, partners and customers in Singapore will enjoy a seamless, transparent billing experience when paying for their subscriptions. This removes the need to buffer for fluctuations in the USD/SGD currency exchange every month.

View our upcoming SGD pricing plans here, which will be inclusive of 7% Singapore GST.

Paving the way for Singapore to grow from strength to strength

The introduction of SGD billing underscores Xero’s commitment to the Singapore market.

When Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) implemented the nationwide E-invoicing network (now known as InvoiceNow) in 2019, our product teams worked hard to ensure Xero was PEPPOL-ready and at the forefront of digitising Singapore businesses.

We recently announced two acquisitions in the e-invoicing space in support of the Singapore government’s vision for Smart Nation through InvoiceNow. The acquisitions of Tickstar and Invoici are part of our commitment to make it easy and seamless for SMEs in Singapore to harness digital technology and stay competitive, digitalising more of their workflows and enabling them to get paid faster. Our proprietary workflow, utilising Tickstar’s infrastructure and Invoici’s app will help our customers comply with future legislation and realise the many benefits that e-invoicing brings.

Earlier this year, we let our partners and customers know that Xero will be partnering with IRAS and ACRA to build a seamless tax filing solution that will help automate the process of preparing and filing statutory filings. This means that you will be able to create IRAS Corporate Income Tax Return forms and prepare and file Annual Returns with Financial Statements to ACRA, all within the Xero platform.

We continue to work in partnership with the Singapore government towards a smarter, digital Singapore, and stay committed to serving the Singapore market via our community of accounting partners, corporate secretarial firms and small business customers. Aligned to this, we have also worked to ensure our customers and partners stand to benefit from the adoption of Xero through government support, including the Digital Resilience Bonus (DRB) and Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG).

Singapore Dollar billing is one of many updates that will soon benefit our customers in Singapore and around the region. We can’t wait to share more with you later in the year.

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