Preparing Accounts for Investors in Singapore
25 September 2026
Editor: ET
When a Singapore SME starts looking for investors, the conversation quickly moves beyond sales and business ideas. Investors want to understand the numbers behind the opportunity.
How much revenue is the company generating? Is it profitable? How much cash does it have? What are its liabilities? Which areas of the business are growing? And perhaps most importantly, can the financial information be trusted?
For founders preparing for fundraising, having clean and well-organised accounts can make these discussions more productive. Financial statements are not simply compliance documents. They can help investors understand the company's current position, historical performance and potential needs.
Expede Tech's accounting approach reflects this practical role of financial information. Its Singapore SME accounting services include bookkeeping, financial statements, profit and loss reporting and tax compliance, with cloud-based processes designed to make financial information easier to manage.
Further Reading: Year-End Bonuses: Payroll Guide for SMEs
Start With Clean Accounting Records
Before approaching investors, review the foundation of your financial information.
If bookkeeping is incomplete or transactions have been recorded inconsistently, preparing investor materials can become much more difficult. Founders may spend valuable time trying to reconcile bank accounts, locate invoices or explain unexplained transactions instead of focusing on the investment discussion.
A useful first step is to ensure that the company's accounting records are current and reconciled.
Review:
Bank and cash balances
Accounts receivable
Accounts payable
Revenue
Operating expenses
Payroll
Loans and other liabilities
Fixed assets
Shareholder or director transactions
Tax balances
IRAS requires companies to maintain proper records of financial transactions and supporting documents, including accounting records and bank statements, for at least five years from the relevant Year of Assessment.
Keeping these records organised is useful not only for tax compliance but also when investors request supporting information.
Prepare the Core Financial Statements
Investors will usually want more than a single profit figure.
The key financial statements provide different perspectives on the business.
Profit and Loss Statement
The profit and loss statement shows revenue, expenses and profit or loss over a particular period.
Instead of simply presenting the bottom-line figure, founders should understand what is driving it.
For example:
Is revenue growing consistently?
Are gross margins improving?
Which costs are increasing?
Are marketing or staffing costs rising faster than sales?
Are certain products or services more profitable?
Expede Tech's guidance on financial data similarly emphasises using accounting information to understand profitability rather than looking only at revenue.
Balance Sheet
The balance sheet provides a snapshot of the company's financial position.
It shows assets, liabilities and equity. This can help an investor understand the company's financial structure, including whether growth is being funded through retained earnings, shareholder funding, borrowing or other sources.
Cash Flow Statement
Profit does not always mean cash is available.
A business can report accounting profits while experiencing cash flow pressure because customers have not paid invoices, inventory has increased or significant payments are due.
For investors, understanding how cash moves through the business can therefore be just as important as understanding profitability.
Prepare Management Accounts Too
Annual financial statements provide an important historical record, but investors may also want to see more recent performance.
This is where management accounts can be useful.
Expede Tech's Singapore SME guidance highlights management accounts as a way to provide a more current view of profitability, cash flow, costs and business performance.
Depending on the business, these reports might be prepared monthly or quarterly.
For an investor conversation, recent management information could help bridge the gap between the latest annual financial statements and the company's current trading position.
For example, if the most recent audited or annual accounts are six months old, updated management accounts can provide additional context about what has happened since then.
Make Revenue Easy to Understand
Investors may want to understand not just how much revenue the business generates, but where that revenue comes from.
If appropriate, organise revenue by:
Product or service
Customer segment
Market
Geography
Recurring versus one-off revenue
Major customer accounts
This can help explain the business model more clearly.
For example, an SME with S$2 million in annual revenue may present a very different investment picture depending on whether that revenue comes from hundreds of recurring customers or a small number of large contracts.
The financial accounts should therefore connect with the commercial story the founder is presenting.
Explain Major Expenses and Liabilities
Investors may also examine the company's cost structure.
Large or unusual expenses should be identifiable and explainable. Significant loans, leases, deferred payments, related-party transactions or other liabilities should also be properly documented.
This is one reason clean accounting records matter before fundraising. When financial information is organised, founders can answer questions using documented figures rather than relying on estimates or memory.
ACRA also notes that directors have responsibilities relating to financial reporting and must present financial statements that comply with prescribed accounting standards and give a true and fair view of the company's financial position and performance.
Check the Company's Share Structure
Accounts are only one part of investor preparation.
Before a fundraising discussion becomes formal, founders should also understand the company's existing shareholding structure.
Review:
Current shareholders
Number and class of shares
Shareholders' agreements, where applicable
Existing options or rights
Previous share issuances
Share transfers
Outstanding commitments that could affect ownership
This helps ensure that the financial story and ownership story are consistent.
A potential investor will want clarity about what percentage of the company is being offered and how a new investment could affect existing shareholders.
Be Ready for Financial Due Diligence
Investor discussions can progress into due diligence, where financial and corporate information may be examined in greater detail.
A company should ideally be able to provide supporting documents behind its reported figures.
This could include:
Bank statements
Major customer contracts
Supplier agreements
Invoices
Payroll records
Tax filings
Loan agreements
Fixed asset records
Financial statements
Management accounts
The better organised these documents are, the easier it can be to respond to information requests.
For Singapore SMEs, this also reinforces the value of maintaining accounting records throughout the year rather than attempting to reconstruct them when fundraising begins.
Consider XBRL and Statutory Reporting
Where applicable, Singapore companies must prepare and file financial statements according to ACRA's requirements. ACRA states that Singapore-incorporated companies generally must prepare financial statements, subject to applicable exemptions, and companies required to file may need to submit them in XBRL format.
While statutory accounts and investor reporting are not identical, accurate statutory financial statements provide an important foundation for discussions with potential investors.
It is also worth remembering that audit exemption does not mean a company has no financial reporting responsibilities. ACRA's small-company audit exemption has specific criteria, while directors continue to have financial reporting duties.
Further Reading: Year-End Bonuses: Payroll Guide for SMEs
Turn Accounting Into an Investor-Ready Process
Preparing accounts for investors should ideally begin well before the first fundraising meeting.
A Singapore SME can start by keeping bookkeeping current, reconciling accounts regularly, reviewing management accounts, documenting significant transactions and maintaining supporting records.
Expede Tech's technology-enabled accounting model is designed around this type of ongoing financial organisation, combining cloud-based accounting with professional support for bookkeeping, financial reporting and tax compliance.
The goal is not to make the numbers look better than they are. It is to make them clear, accurate and understandable.
For founders, that can make investor conversations more focused on the business opportunity rather than explaining missing documents or inconsistent figures.
Good accounts do not guarantee investment. But they can give investors a clearer view of the business—and give founders greater confidence when presenting the company they have built.
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