Nguyễn Thị Hạnh

Hạnh graduated in accounting in 2008 and went straight into an audit firm. In six years there she audited dozens of small and mid-sized companies, from consumer goods distributors to builders. What stayed with her was not the big errors but the ledgers nobody could follow because too many people had kept them.

In March 2014 she opened Sổ Sách Sáng with five clients. Twelve years later the office has five people, and there is one job she still does herself: reading and signing off every financial statement before it is filed.

Who she works with

Hạnh looks after a small group of foreign-owned companies directly, where the owner needs someone to explain Vietnamese books in English and to deal with the independent auditor each year. She also takes the difficult cases: a company facing a tax inspection, books abandoned for several years, or an owner who wants to understand why a cost was disallowed. Her consultation slots are on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

A habit

Every financial statement gets printed. She checks three numbers first: the cash balance against the bank’s confirmation, the VAT still payable against the returns filed, and the retained earnings carried over from last year. If those three agree, the rest is usually sound. If one is off, she calls whoever prepared it straight away rather than leaving a note for tomorrow.

During the 2025 year-end, that check turned up late-payment interest from 2022 that a client’s previous accountant had never recorded. The amount was small, but had the tax office found it first, it would have meant a full afternoon of explanations.

What she is learning

Some foreign-owned clients have asked about reporting under international standards, so this year she is studying IFRS on Wednesday evenings. She is also rereading the Tax Administration Law 108/2025/QH15 with Quân, one chapter a week, so the whole office reads it the same way.