Tom Hendriks, who is Dutch, runs a company that builds warehouse software for clients in Europe. The office is in Thạnh Mỹ Tây ward (formerly Bình Thạnh district) and the team is eight: Tom as director, six Vietnamese developers and a project manager. Almost all revenue arrives in US dollars from contracts with the parent company and two other overseas clients.
Before
The company was set up in 2021 through a law firm, and its books went to another accounting office. Each month Tom received Vietnamese-language returns by email with no explanation. In 2023 three returns were filed late; each time he found out from a penalty notice. The 2023 audit proposed 11 adjusting entries and the statements were signed on 29 March, two days before the deadline. He contacted us in June 2024, after the auditor’s management letter listed “foreign contractor tax not declared”.
What Tài did, month by month
June 2024. Phạm Đức Tài took over the files, read the 2023 books and the first half of 2024, and checked them against every return already filed. He found the cause of the auditor’s note: two licence fee invoices from the parent company in Singapore had no foreign contractor tax declared. (Foreign contractor tax is the tax a Vietnamese company declares and pays on behalf of an overseas supplier when it pays them.) The company filed supplementary returns and paid the tax and late-payment interest in July. Cleaning up the 2023 books was billed separately at VND 6 million.
July and August 2024. Tài rebuilt the chart of accounts and tagged every revenue line with the client’s name. Together with Tom he fixed the format of the one-page monthly report in English: revenue by client, large costs, cash in the bank, tax payable, upcoming deadlines.
December 2024. The pre-audit checklist: confirm balances with the parent company, chase missing invoices, record accrued costs. The independent audit firm Tom appointed sent its document list, and Tài prepared to it.
March 2025. The 2024 audit closed with 4 adjusting entries. For 2025 there were 2, and the audited statements were signed on 13 March 2026.
From July 2026. The quarterly provisional corporate income tax deadline moved to the last day of the month after each quarter under Decree 252/2026/NĐ-CP. Tài flagged it in a short paragraph in the June report, with the Q3 payment date: 2 November 2026.
What changed
Tom reads the monthly report in five minutes and forwards it to the parent company’s finance director. There have been no late returns in two years. Audit adjustments fell from 11 to 2, and the 2025 audit fee was lower than 2023’s because the auditors needed fewer days on site.
What it costs now
The bookkeeping and financial statements package is VND 3,000,000 a month. With eight people, three are above the included five, at VND 60,000 each: VND 180,000. The monthly report in English adds VND 500,000. Total VND 3,680,000 a month before 8% VAT, or VND 3,974,400. The company has about 45 documents a month, inside the 80 limit.
The annual audit is not in the package. We do not audit books we keep. The company pays the independent audit firm directly.
What was hard
Tom wanted profit by project in dollars, including developer hours. Our package splits revenue by client, but allocating salaries to projects by hours needs detailed timesheets and is management accounting work outside the VND 3 million fee. We quoted it separately. Tom decided the split by client was enough and keeps the timesheets himself.
Exchange differences take time too. Money arrives in dollars, the books are kept in dong, and every receipt and conversion has its own rate. At year end Tài revalues foreign currency balances, and that was one of the two entries the auditors still queried for 2025.
One thing Tom told us plainly: Tài’s English is good for email and reports, but long calls with the finance director in Singapore did not work well. Both sides agreed to handle questions in writing. It is a little slower, and every answer is on record.
More on our bookkeeping and financial statements service, and on what foreign founders should budget in company setup costs for 2026.
On the 10th of each month I get one page in English, and this year the auditors queried only two entries.