ERP for startup. Books, payroll and compliance from day one, without hiring a back office.
A startup does not need a back office; it needs the books, payroll and filings to run without a founder awake at midnight. Kinnow has no ready-made startup setup, so we set up the right applications and controls with you in the first two weeks.
From December 2026How does Kinnow help a startup? You start with the finance core and add what you need: invoices, bills and expenses, bank reconciliation, payroll with CPF (the Central Provident Fund contributions), GST preparation, and statements an investor or auditor can read. There is no ready-made startup setup in the product, so approval limits, sign-off routes and reports are set up with you rather than switched on from a template. Nothing is filed, paid or posted without a person.
Singapore edition, from December 2026. Nothing on this page is live in Singapore today. There is no ready-made startup setup. What follows is done with you when the edition opens.
Your company, in one paragraph.
There are a handful of people and no finance team. The founder raises invoices, matches the bank statement on a weekend, chases a customer who has not paid and asks the accountant what is due this month. Payroll is run from a spreadsheet, and every investor update means stitching a profit and loss from three tools. Buying an ERP feels premature, so the books live in something you will outgrow in a year.
Three things keep the founder awake: a filing date nobody owns, cash that looks fine until payroll week, and a first audit or due diligence that finds the books were never closed properly.
What is configured with you, and what is not a template
We say this plainly because the other sector pages describe a ready-made industry setup and this one has none.
| Area | What we set up with you | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Applications | Which of the 49 you switch on, per company: typically Masters, Sell, Buy (bills and expenses), Account, People, Comply, Know and Vault | Applications are switched on per company |
| Starter data | A General item group and six payment terms (advance, due on receipt, 7, 15, 30 and 45 days) come with every company | Common starter data |
| Approval limits | Who approves a journal, an invoice or a credit limit, and from what amount, in Singapore dollars. You decide the figures | Limit templates and the approvals designer |
| Industry pack | If you build software, the Tech Product Development setup fits; services firms can start from IT Services or Professional Services. Otherwise none is applied | Fifteen industry setups exist; none is called Startup |
| Singapore set-up | GST registration number or UEN (company registration number) on the company, your IRAS (Singapore's tax authority) accounting cycle for the F5 (the quarterly GST return) calendar, and a date of birth and residency status for each employee so CPF can be worked out | The Singapore country setup |
| Opening position | Masters and opening balances imported in the first week; you can run alongside your current books until a month ties | Migration with a trial balance that must tie |
Tell us your stage and team size; we will propose the first three applications to switch on.
Tell us your stage and team size, and we will propose the first three applications.
How your month runs on Kinnow
This is set up with you, not a ready-made template: you choose which steps you need.
| Step | Who | What Kinnow does | Where a person approves |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Invoice and collect | Founder | Invoices are raised in Sell with GST priced per line and checked as a tax invoice; overdue reminders are drafted by days overdue. The customer sees and can dispute an invoice in the customer portal. | Invoices over the limit you set wait for approval. |
| 2. Capture bills and expenses | Founder, ops | The AI Invoice Extractor reads a vendor PDF into bill fields with an amount-integrity check. Expense claims are approved by someone other than the claimant. | The approver signs; the claimant cannot. |
| 3. Reconcile the bank | Founder | Bank Reconciler pre-matches statement lines to receipts and shows why. A line it cannot match gets a drafted journal from your own history, which waits in the approval queue. | An accountant or the founder approves the draft. |
| 4. Run payroll | Founder, HR | CPF and the employer's Skills Development Levy are worked out in a payroll run for citizens and permanent residents. No income tax is withheld, because Singapore has no PAYE for them. | The run is approved by someone other than the person who prepared it. |
| 5. Watch the filings | Founder, accountant | The compliance calendar sweeps deadlines nightly and alerts 15, 7 and 1 day before each. The quarter's GST F5 is drafted for review once the groundwork is completed before launch if you are GST-registered. | A person reviews and files. |
| 6. Close the month | Founder, accountant | Double-entry validation checks every journal. The close runs twelve checks and seven must pass; the Close Checklist pre-fills the list and drafts variance notes. | A person confirms the close. |
| 7. Read the numbers | Founder, investors | Trial balance, profit and loss, balance sheet and cash-flow statement come straight from the books. A weekly digest summarises revenue, collections and alerts. | The founder reviews before anything is shared. |
| 8. Face the audit | Founder, auditor | An audit pack gathers the period status, debtor and creditor confirmation lists, the fixed-asset schedule and bank accounts with their reconciled-to date. | The accountant reviews and signs off. |
Agents a startup would start with
Bank Reconciler
Matches bank lines to receipts ahead of time and shows why it matched each one. Lines it is unsure about come up as suggestions only and are never committed on their own.
AccountClose Checklist
Runs the twelve period-close checks, helps clear the ones holding up the close and drafts the commentary on variances. A person confirms the close.
Account / KnowCash-flow Forecaster
Builds a rolling cash forecast for the next 30, 60 and 90 days from post-dated cheques, bills due and how customers have paid in the past, with a range around each figure to show how sure it is.
Sell + AccountCollections
Drafts overdue reminders and steps them up according to how many days a payment is actually late. A person approves each reminder before it goes out.
ComplyFiling Prep
Builds the sales-tax return file from your books and lists every document it left out, with the reason, for a person to clear before filing.
AccountAI Invoice Extractor
Reads the text of a supplier invoice and fills in the bill for you, checking that the amounts add up before anything is saved.
AccountDouble-entry Validator
Stops any journal entry that does not balance, or that uses a ledger that is not valid, before it can be posted.
VaultAsk Kinnow
Answers questions from your documents and from the records of the applications you use, and only shows what the person asking is allowed to see.
Every agent is validated with each client before it works on their books, and every output waits for a person.
Ask us to run the bank reconciler on one of your own statements.
Statutory calendar for a startup
Alerts go out 15, 7 and 1 day before each filing on the calendar. Kinnow prepares; a person confirms and files. Dates are confirmed with IRAS, ACRA (the company registrar) and the CPF Board, not printed here.
| Obligation | What Kinnow prepares | What stays with you |
|---|---|---|
| GST F5 return (quarterly) | Boxes 1 to 8 of the F5 for the quarter, from the sales invoices, credit notes and purchase bills in your books; a credit note reverses its line. Kinnow prices each line at 9 per cent, zero-rates a customer outside Singapore and carries a short exempt list. The calendar puts each return one month after its quarter ends, from the accounting cycle IRAS gave you; it refuses to guess the cycle. | A person reviews every box and files through the IRAS portal with their own CorpPass (the government login for businesses) login. Kinnow does not submit it. A Singapore adviser checks the box layout against the current IRAS form before the first filing. |
| Tax invoices | The Singapore country setup holds the checks for a tax invoice: a valid GST registration number or UEN, date, serial number, the GST amount, and the words Tax Invoice on a full tax invoice (a simplified invoice is allowed up to S$1,000 including GST). A reverse-charge supply that also charges GST is refused. | The finance lead decides which invoices are simplified and which supplies are reverse-charge. |
| CPF and the Skills Development Levy (monthly) | Payroll works out CPF by age band, on the ordinary-wage ceiling, and the employer's Skills Development Levy, on each payslip. It needs a recorded date of birth and citizen or permanent-resident status, and lists anyone it had to skip. It withholds no income tax: Singapore has no PAYE for citizens and permanent residents. | Payment and submission to the CPF Board happen outside Kinnow. IR8A, IR8S, Appendix 8A (the yearly employee pay statements) and the monthly CPF submission are named in the Singapore setup as filings; Kinnow does not prepare or submit them. |
| ACRA annual return, AGM, estimated chargeable income, corporate tax return | Tracked as registrations on your company, each with the due date Kinnow works out and a lead time before it. The AGM and the annual return are two items, because they run on two clocks. | The company secretary and finance head confirm every date against ACRA and IRAS, and file. |
| Month-end close | Twelve checks with the entries behind any failure; seven must pass. | The finance head signs the close. |
What the founder sees
| Ask Kinnow | Answer built from |
|---|---|
| Give me the trial balance as of today | Trial balance |
| How did we do this year? | Profit and loss |
| What is our cash forecast for the next 90 days? | Cash-flow forecast |
| Which customers owe us the most and for how long? | Receivables ageing |
| What is due this week? | Compliance calendar |
Each answer shows its source and what it will cost before it runs. Veil, our privacy layer, holds back bank, tax and ID numbers and swaps names for placeholders before an AI call. It covers Ask Kinnow and most agents today; the rest are being added.
See your own first month-end close on Kinnow.
Questions
Is Kinnow overkill for a ten-person startup?
No, if you start small. There is no licence fee for the ERP or any application, and nothing per user. Every business gets one fixed price, set with a Kinnow partner, and you switch on only the applications you need.
Is there a ready-made Startup setup?
No. Fifteen ready-made industry setups exist and none is for startups. A software company can use Tech Product Development, a services startup can start from IT Services or Professional Services, and we set up the rest with you.
Can I start with accounting and add the rest later?
Yes. Applications switch on per company when you need them. Sales, bills, payroll and compliance share one ledger from the first day, so nothing is migrated twice.
Will it handle our first audit?
It prepares for one. Journals are validated as balanced, the close runs checks before a period locks, and the audit pack gathers confirmation lists, the fixed-asset schedule and bank reconciliation status. Your auditor still decides what they need.
Who files our GST?
Your team or your accountant. The groundwork to draft the quarter's F5 is completed before launch; someone reviews it and files through the IRAS portal. A Singapore adviser checks the box layout against the current IRAS form before the first filing.
How long does set-up take?
About two weeks to first results for one company, counted from when your Singapore edition is switched on in December 2026: masters and opening balances in the first week, agents switched on and a first close in the second.
Does it work on a phone?
It works in the phone browser. There is no separate mobile app.
Show me Kinnow for startup.
Answer three questions. Get the applications, the agents and a two-week plan for your business.