Professional services
Accounting software for consultants and accounting practices
Your firm keeps everyone else's books well. SimpleERP keeps your own: fee income posts itself from every invoice, advances wait on the client's account, and the month closes with a lock date.
In short
SimpleERP is accounting software for consultants and accounting practices. Fee invoices, receipts, salaries and office expenses post balanced journals to one ledger, client advances stay on account, and tax withheld by clients is tracked as a receivable.
Illustration: saving invoice INV-2026-0213 moves stock, posts the customer ledger, records tax and updates the dashboard in one step.
An accounting day at Whitlam and Ng Accountants
The senior partner reviews twenty clients' books a month and admits the practice's own ledger is the last one anybody touches. Receipts from overseas clients arrive short by the tax they withheld, a few clients pay the year's retainer in July, and the firm's own tax position is pieced together in a spreadsheet before each due date.
A graduate trainee was handed the job last year and spent three days matching receipts to invoices from the bank statement. The trial balance never quite agreed with what the partners thought they had earned.
SimpleERP writes the practice's journals as the work happens. A fee invoice posts income and output tax, a receipt clears the debtor, salaries post from the payroll run, and the partners open the P&L on any date without asking anyone to prepare it.
Which ledger accounts does a practice actually need?
The chart seeded at sign-up already holds bank, tax, salaries and debtors. Add an account for tax receivable and one for fee income per line of work if the partners want audit and advisory income shown apart.
- Journals that name the party whenever they touch a client or supplier account.
- Drill down from any ledger line to the invoice or receipt behind it.
| Account | What posts to it | How it gets there |
|---|---|---|
| Fee income (audit, tax, advisory) | The value of each fee invoice | Automatically from the invoice |
| Tax payable | Output tax on every fee | Automatically from the invoice |
| Clients (receivable) | What each client owes | Invoice adds, receipt clears |
| Clients (receivable), credit side | Year's retainer paid in July | Unallocated receipt, a credit on the client until allocated |
| Tax receivable | Tax a client withheld from your fee | Manual journal against the client |
| Salaries | Staff and graduate trainees' pay | Automatically from the payroll run |
How do we track tax our clients withhold?
Say a client in Jakarta owes $10,000 on an advisory fee and pays $9,000 after withholding $1,000 under its local rules. Record the receipt of $9,000, then post a manual journal debiting tax receivable and crediting the client by $1,000. The invoice reads as paid, and the tax receivable balance is the figure to match against the client's withholding certificate at year end.
- Tax receivable balance by client in the account detail.
- Customer statement that shows the withholding line beside the receipt.
- No dedicated withholding screen yet: the manual journal is the honest route.
Illustration of receivables ageing: 2,441 to collect across 5 buckets, with customer totals.
What does the month-end close look like for a practice?
Four checks, each a screen you already have. Once they pass, set the lock date so nobody can post into the closed month, including the partner who wants to backdate one more invoice.
- Bank reconciliation for the practice account, ticking each client receipt that cleared.
- Receivables ageing reviewed for retainers that have slipped past 60 days.
- Tax summary and sales register checked before your own return goes in.
- Lock date set, with any reopening recorded in the audit log.
One system
What it connects to
Professional services
Service invoices with the right tax, quotations, a CRM pipeline, expense claims and payroll.
See howInventory for accounting firms
What a practice should track as stock (resold hardware security keys), what it should expense and what it can ignore entirely.
See howPayroll for accounting firms
Salaries for staff accountants and graduate trainees, busy-season leave and audit travel claims, paid from one run.
See howAccounting
A double-entry ledger with journals, bank registers, statements and a lock date.
See how
Honest limits
What SimpleERP does not do yet
- No bank feeds: bank entries are recorded and reconciled by hand
- No multi-currency; every document is in your base currency
- Tax returns are not filed and e-invoices are not issued from inside the product
- No profitability by engagement or by partner; income is by account, not by job
- No dedicated screen for tax withheld by clients; it is a manual journal
Getting started
Start with accounting
Sign up with your email
Name, email and a password. No card for the seven-day trial.
Tell us about the business
Pick your country and, if you are registered, type your tax number. Accounts, tax rates, units, roles and numbering are seeded for that country.
Enter opening balances
Bring in the bank balance, what each client owes, any retainer advances held and any tax receivable carried forward, as one opening entry.
Run the trial balance
Every posted document is already in the ledger; the trial balance and P&L are ready on any date.
FAQ
Questions, answered
A client paid the whole year's retainer in July. How do we show that?
Record the receipt without allocating it. The money stays on the client's account as an advance, and each month's retainer invoice is settled from it as you allocate. Some countries tax an advance when it is received; SimpleERP does not post tax on the receipt, so account for it with your own adviser.
Can the partners see income by partner or by engagement?
Not directly. Income is reported by account, so separate fee income accounts per line of work give a useful split. There is no profit by engagement or partner in this release, and capital accounts per partner are kept as ordinary ledger accounts.
We do bookkeeping for clients. Can we run their books in SimpleERP too?
Each business is its own organisation in SimpleERP with its own ledger and users, so a client's books can be set up separately. The practice's own books stay apart from every client's, and your staff join each organisation with a role.
Can a graduate trainee post journals without touching payroll?
Yes. The seeded Accountant role includes payroll, so copy it into a custom role and remove payroll. The trainee can then post journals and reconcile the bank, while salaries stay with the partners.
Related
Keep reading
Professional services
Service invoices with the right tax, quotations, a CRM pipeline, expense claims and payroll.
Read moreInventory for accounting firms
What a practice should track as stock (resold hardware security keys), what it should expense and what it can ignore entirely.
Read morePayroll for accounting firms
Salaries for staff accountants and graduate trainees, busy-season leave and audit travel claims, paid from one run.
Read more
See how accounting works in SimpleERP for professional services
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