Singapore Agency Chart of Accounts for Xero: Reverse Charge and Clubs

A Singapore agency or consultancy is mostly people and software, and two GST rules catch the unwary: when an offshore subscription triggers the reverse charge, and which ordinary-looking business costs carry no input tax at all. This is a Singapore agency chart of accounts built for Xero, with both coded in. It ships as a readable reference (CSV) and a Xero import CSV.

The reverse charge, only if partially exempt

Offshore design tools, hosting, and ad platforms are imported services. Since 2020, a GST-registered business that is not entitled to full input tax claims, a partially exempt business, must self-account for GST on imported services under the reverse charge. A fully taxable agency that recovers all its input tax is generally outside it. The chart reflects that nuance: software subscriptions, advertising and marketing, and stock media and licences default to Standard-Rated Purchases and list Reverse charge: Taxable supply at 9% as the alternative to apply when the agency is partially exempt. The offshore invoice carries no Singapore GST either way.

Blocked: club subscriptions

The bigger surprise for agencies is what is permanently blocked. Input tax on club subscription fees is disallowed under Regulation 26, alongside motor cars, medical, and family benefits. So the club subscriptions account defaults to Disallowed Expenses. The membership an agency buys to entertain clients is a cost with no GST credit, even though the client entertainment meals themselves are claimable. That contrast (blocked club, claimable meal) is exactly why coding each cost to the right account matters.

Freelancers, media licences, and home office

An agency ledger leans on contractors and creative inputs, so the chart splits them out. Freelancer and contractor costs default to Standard-Rated Purchases with Out Of Scope Purchases listed for work performed overseas, and a note to watch non-resident withholding tax. Stock media and licences default to standard-rated with the reverse charge listed for overseas suppliers. Home office costs and coworking and shared office cover where the work happens, with home office apportioned to business use and residential rent itself exempt. Professional development and training rounds out the people side.

How to use it

1. Open the CSV: each account carries its class, a default Xero GST code, the other valid codes, and a note. The freelancer, media, and home-office accounts are the agency additions.
2. In Xero, go to Accounting, then Chart of accounts, then Import, and upload the CSV, into a demo org first.
3. Confirm the Singapore tax rates exist in your org.
4. Decide once whether the agency is fully taxable or partially exempt, because that decides whether the reverse-charge alternative applies to your offshore subscriptions.

The recurring work is the subscription and contractor ledger:

• Dext pulls recurring SaaS receipts into the file.
• ExpenseFlow reads each receipt and supplier invoice, flags input tax that looks blocked (a club subscription) and offshore purchases that carry no Singapore GST, and posts the transaction into Xero against the right account, so the blocked and reverse-charge cases are surfaced at capture.
• Aspire and similar business accounts feed card spend through for coding.

Two judgements the chart cannot make for you: whether the reverse charge applies (it depends on your input-tax status) and whether a freelancer payment triggers non-resident withholding tax. The accounts give each a clean home; the calls stay with you or your accountant. It also helps to set, against each recurring subscription, whether it is billed locally or from overseas, because that single fact is what decides between the standard-rated and reverse-charge columns, and recording it once at setup saves re-deciding it on every monthly invoice that follows.

On QuickBooks instead? See the Singapore agency chart of accounts for QuickBooks. For the full GST picture, see the Singapore agency expenses guide.