Ms Hương’s bakery sits in an alley near Bàn Cờ market. It sells pastries in the morning and makes cakes to order. Four people work there: Hương, her younger sister and two bakers. Revenue in 2025 was about VND 1.8 billion, half in cash at the counter, the rest by bank transfer and through food delivery apps.
Before
Until the end of 2025 the bakery paid lump-sum tax: once a year the tax office set an amount, Hương paid it monthly, and nobody asked what the shop actually sold. The books were one notebook of cake orders and a folder of receipts for flour, butter and cream.
In October 2025 she read that lump-sum tax for household businesses would end on 1 January 2026 and every shop would declare its own revenue. She tried adding up September from the notebook, her bank statement and the delivery app reports. It took most of a Sunday afternoon, and the three sources gave three different totals. Customers ordering cakes paid into her personal account, mixed with market shopping and her son’s school fees. She called us in early November.
What Trang did, month by month
November 2025. Lê Thu Trang visited one Tuesday morning after the rush. She took away three months of bank statements, the notebook and the app reports, and estimated 2025 revenue at about VND 1.8 billion. That meant quarterly returns and e-invoices from 2026.
December 2025. Trang and Hương chose point-of-sale software that issues e-invoices from the cash register, comparing three providers on annual price and on whether the bakers could use it on a phone. Hương opened a bank account used only for the shop and printed a new QR code for the counter.
January 2026. The register went live on the 2nd. Each evening sales flow into the revenue ledger in the format set by Circular 152/2025/TT-BTC. Hương photographs ingredient receipts and sends them on Zalo every Saturday.
March to May 2026. Decree 68/2026/NĐ-CP came out on 5 March, then Decree 141/2026/NĐ-CP on 29 April raised the tax-free threshold to VND 1 billion. Neither change moved the bakery out of group 2 (VND 1 billion to under 3 billion). Trang spent half an hour with Hương choosing how personal income tax would be calculated. The Q1 return went in on 28 April, ahead of the 4 May deadline.
July 2026. The Q2 return was filed on 24 July, deadline 31 July. Each time, Trang sends the draft on Zalo two days early with the amount payable on its own line, then confirms once she sees the payment receipt.
What changed
Hương no longer adds up books. She checks the day’s sales on her phone at closing and reads Trang’s one-page message at month end: revenue, tax estimated for the quarter, next deadline. Her monthly paperwork time went from about six hours to half an hour.
The gap between recorded revenue and money received, around 18% at the start, is now under 1%. What remains is the delivery apps’ commission, deducted before they pay out, and Trang records each one.
One change she did not expect: offices nearby now order birthday cakes for staff. She used to turn down two or three of those orders a month because the customer needed an invoice. Now the register prints one at the counter.
What it costs now
The tax filing package is VND 1,500,000 a month before 8% VAT, so VND 1,620,000. The point-of-sale software is paid directly to the provider under a contract in Hương’s name. The e-tax account is in her name too; Trang is only authorised to file.
What was hard
In Q1, 14 cake orders were paid into Hương’s old personal account out of habit, and declared revenue came up about VND 9 million short. Trang found it while reconciling the bank statements and filed a correction before the tax office asked. It only stopped in May, when Hương removed the old account number from the shop’s Facebook page.
The second limit: the bakery cannot yet choose to be taxed on income rather than revenue. Flour, sugar and eggs mostly come from the market without invoices, so the costs cannot be proven. For 2026 the bakery pays on revenue, and Trang is helping Hương move purchases to two suppliers who issue invoices so she has the choice next year. And cash at the counter is still something only Hương can count. Her accountant records what the register records, no more.
More on our tax filing service and on household business tax in 2026.
On lump-sum tax I never needed to know what we sold in a month; now I know every evening without adding anything up myself.