Features · 01
For Singapore sole traders
Invoicing, expense capture, bank feeds and document storage — the four things a one-person book actually runs on, explained in plain words.
The tools a one-person ledger really needs
Everything below is here to record income and expenses accurately, hold the documents behind them, and produce the figures your statement of accounts requires. Nothing here is built for a department.
The working order
Six moves, in the order a book gets done
You do not have to learn the whole tool at once. Each row below is a step you can finish in one sitting, and each one feeds the next.
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Step one
Set your UEN and business name once
Every invoice carries your business name, your UEN, a running number, what you supplied, and how much. The template remembers the fixed parts so you only fill in the variable ones.
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Step two
Send the invoice, keep the record
Send it as a PDF and the same record stays attached to the client and the period it belongs to. If a client pays late, the outstanding invoice is visible rather than forgotten.
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Step three
Record the spend and attach the receipt
Pick a category, then scan or photograph the receipt at the point of payment. The ledger holds the file next to the entry instead of in a separate folder that fills up and stops being maintained.
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Step four
Match the bank feed, line by line
The feed brings transactions in and settles the typing. Reconciliation is where you match each line to an invoice, an expense, or a transfer, and leave the rest unmatched until you find out what they are.
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Step five
Read P&L and balance together
Your statement of accounts comprises a Profit and Loss Account and a Balance Sheet. The P&L pulls income less allowable expenses into the profit figure; the balance view tracks what the business owns and owes.
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Step six
Keep access locked down
The workspace holds your revenue, your client names, and your bank data, so access deserves more than a password. Multi-factor authentication adds a second step at sign-in; keep the recovery details current and take a moment before sharing access.
What is in the desk
Six capabilities, one line each
A sole trader's accounting software does not need to cover payroll, inventory and multi-entity consolidation. Here is what the workspace actually carries.
- Invoicing
- A template that already knows your UEN, a running number series you never renumber by hand, and a PDF you can send the same afternoon the job finishes. Overdue invoices stay visible on the client record rather than in an email thread.
- Expense tracking
- Record the spend, pick a category, attach the receipt. Repeated categories build your own map of where the money goes, and at year end the total per category feeds directly into adjusted profit. Keep the description plain: what it was, who it was for, and the date.
- Bank feeds
- The feed brings transactions in and settles the typing. You still do the matching, because you are the only one who knows which line was a client payment and which was a transfer between your own accounts — the most common confusion for sole traders, and the one worth marking correctly rather than calling it income.
- Document storage
- Records have to be retained for five years, and the supporting documents have to still exist at the end of that period. Storing the file where the transaction lives removes the separate filing system that usually fails first.
- Period reports
- A Profit and Loss Account and a Balance Sheet, drawn from the entries you already made. Neither report requires you to translate your book into accountant language first.
- Workspace access
- Multi-factor authentication protects the account that holds your revenue, client names and bank data. Use it, and review who can see the book before anyone else is invited in to help.
What you will not find here
Sized for a sole proprietor, not a department
There is no employee module, no purchase order chain, and no consolidation screen, because those are not a one-person business's problem. What is here is the part you will open every week: entries, receipts, matches, invoices, and the period report.
What LedgerLite handles
- Client invoices with your UEN already filled in
- Expenses categorised with the receipt attached
- Bank transactions matched to the entry they belong to
- Documents retained alongside the transaction, for the five-year period
- A period report you can hand over without a translation layer
The scope kept deliberately narrow
Kept out on purpose
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Payroll
No employee records, no payslips, no CPF filing. If you take on staff, a dedicated payroll tool will serve you far better than a bolted-on module here.
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Inventory tracking
No stock counts, no cost of goods layers. Service providers and contractors who invoice for their time do not need a warehouse behind their book.
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Mobile card terminal
No card reader, no tap-to-pay. You mark how you were paid; you do not accept the payment through the ledger.
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Multi-entity consolidation
One workspace, one business, one set of figures. Group reporting belongs in the toolkit you reach for when the structure changes.
If your business grows into staff or stock, a different tool will fit better — move rather than bend this one
Before you start
Three things worth knowing on day one
Use one category list, not three
The categories you pick at the moment of entry are the ones that turn up in your adjusted profit at year end. Renaming them halfway through the year creates two lists to reconcile. Decide early, keep them plain, and add a new one only when the spend genuinely does not fit.
Mark your own transfers
Money moving between your personal account and your business account looks like both income and an expense in a raw feed. Neither is true. Mark the pair as a transfer when you match them, and the totals stop overstating themselves.
Write the receipt line while it is still fresh
A receipt with a clear line is easier to defend than a lump sum. Two weeks later the same purchase becomes a guess. What it was, who it was for, and the date — that is all the entry needs.
Still deciding
Ask before you commit the year to it
If you are not sure whether your particular business fits the scope — a mixed income year, a side of rental, a client abroad — ask the question first. A short conversation about how you actually work is cheaper than migrating a year of entries.
The workspace carries
- Invoicing built for a one-person business
- Expense entries that carry their receipts
- Bank feeds and a reconciliation you can see
- Document storage for the five-year period
- Profit and Loss Account and Balance Sheet
Call +65 6894 7430 on weekdays between 9:00 AM and 6:00 PM SGT, or write to [email protected].