Professional services
Accounting software for consultants and CA practices
Your firm keeps everyone else's books well. SimpleERP keeps your own: fee income posts itself from every invoice, advances wait on the client's account, and the month closes with a lock date.
In short
SimpleERP is accounting software for consultants and CA practices in India. Fee invoices, receipts, salaries and office expenses post balanced journals to one ledger, client advances stay on account, and TDS deducted by clients is tracked as a receivable.
Illustration: saving invoice INV-2026-27-0213 moves stock, posts the customer ledger, records CGST and SGST and updates the dashboard in one step.
An accounting day at Venkatraman Iyer & Associates
The senior partner reviews twenty clients' books a month and admits the practice's own ledger is the last one anybody touches. Receipts from clients arrive short by the TDS they deducted, a few clients pay the year's retainer in April, and the firm's own GST and TDS position is pieced together in a spreadsheet before each due date.
An articled assistant was handed the job last year and spent three days matching receipts to invoices from the bank statement. The trial balance never quite agreed with what the partners thought they had earned.
SimpleERP writes the practice's journals as the work happens. A fee invoice posts income and output GST, a receipt clears the debtor, salaries post from the payroll run, and the partners open the P&L on any date without asking anyone to prepare it.
Which ledger accounts does a practice actually need?
The chart seeded at sign-up already holds bank, GST, salaries and debtors. Add an account for TDS receivable and one for fee income per line of work if the partners want audit and advisory income shown apart.
- Journals that name the party whenever they touch a client or supplier account.
- Drill down from any ledger line to the invoice or receipt behind it.
| Account | What posts to it | How it gets there |
|---|---|---|
| Fee income (audit, tax, advisory) | The value of each fee invoice | Automatically from the invoice |
| CGST, SGST and IGST payable | Output tax on every fee | Automatically from the invoice |
| Clients (receivable) | What each client owes | Invoice adds, receipt clears |
| Clients (receivable), credit side | Year's retainer paid in April | Unallocated receipt, a credit on the client until allocated |
| TDS receivable | Tax the client deducted from your fee | Manual journal against the client |
| Salaries and stipends | Staff pay and articled assistants' stipend | Automatically from the payroll run |
How do we track the TDS our clients deduct?
Say a client in Ambattur owes ₹1,18,000 on a ₹1,00,000 fee and pays ₹1,08,000 after deducting ₹10,000. Record the receipt of ₹1,08,000, then post a manual journal debiting TDS receivable and crediting the client by ₹10,000. The invoice reads as paid, and the TDS receivable balance is the figure to match against the client's TDS certificate at year end.
- TDS receivable balance by client in the account detail.
- Customer statement that shows the TDS line beside the receipt.
- No dedicated TDS screen yet: the manual journal is the honest route.
Illustration of receivables ageing: ₹2,14,800 to collect across 5 buckets, with customer totals.
What does the month-end close look like for a practice?
Four checks, each a screen you already have. Once they pass, set the lock date so nobody can post into the closed month, including the partner who wants to backdate one more invoice.
- Bank reconciliation for the practice account, ticking each client receipt that cleared.
- Receivables ageing reviewed for retainers that have slipped past 60 days.
- GST summary and sales register checked before your own GSTR-1 goes in.
- Lock date set, with any reopening recorded in the audit log.
One system
What it connects to
Professional services
SAC-coded invoices with place of supply, quotations, a CRM pipeline, expense claims and payroll.
See howGST billing for CA firms
Fee invoices for audits, returns and retainers with the right SAC code, IGST for clients in other states and TDS-aware receipts.
See howInventory for CA firms
What a practice should track as stock (resold DSC tokens), what it should expense and what it can ignore entirely.
See howPayroll for CA firms
Salaries for staff accountants, stipends for articled assistants, busy-season leave and audit travel claims, paid from one run.
See howAccounting
A double-entry ledger with journals, bank registers, statements and a lock date.
See how
Honest limits
What SimpleERP does not do yet
- No bank feeds: bank entries are recorded and reconciled by hand
- No multi-currency; every document is in rupees
- GST return filing and e-invoicing are not done inside the product
- No profitability by engagement or by partner; income is by account, not by job
- No dedicated screen for TDS deducted by clients; it is a manual journal
Getting started
Start with accounting
Sign up with your phone
Name, phone number and a password. No card for the seven-day trial, and email is optional.
Tell us about the business
Type your GSTIN and the state fills itself. Accounts, GST rates, units, roles and numbering are seeded for you.
Enter opening balances
Bring in the bank balance, what each client owes, any retainer advances held and the TDS receivable carried forward, as one opening entry.
Run the trial balance
Every posted document is already in the ledger; the trial balance and P&L are ready on any date.
FAQ
Questions, answered
A client paid the whole year's retainer in April. How do we show that?
Record the receipt without allocating it. The money stays on the client's account as an advance, and each month's retainer invoice is settled from it as you allocate. GST is due when an advance for services is received; SimpleERP does not post it on the receipt, so your CA accounts for it.
Can the partners see income by partner or by engagement?
Not directly. Income is reported by account, so separate fee income accounts per line of work give a useful split. There is no profit by engagement or partner in this release, and capital accounts per partner are kept as ordinary ledger accounts.
We do bookkeeping for clients. Can we run their books in SimpleERP too?
Each business is its own organisation in SimpleERP with its own ledger and users, so a client's books can be set up separately. The practice's own books stay apart from every client's, and your staff join each organisation with a role.
Can an articled assistant post journals without touching payroll?
Yes. The seeded Accountant role includes payroll, so copy it into a custom role and remove payroll. The assistant can then post journals and reconcile the bank, while salaries and stipends stay with the partners.
Related
Keep reading
Professional services
SAC-coded invoices with place of supply, quotations, a CRM pipeline, expense claims and payroll.
Read moreGST billing for CA firms
Fee invoices for audits, returns and retainers with the right SAC code, IGST for clients in other states and TDS-aware receipts.
Read moreInventory for CA firms
What a practice should track as stock (resold DSC tokens), what it should expense and what it can ignore entirely.
Read more
See how accounting works in SimpleERP for professional services
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