Singapore Hospitality Chart of Accounts for Xero: F&B and GST

A Singapore food and beverage business runs on a high volume of small supplier invoices and a few rules that differ sharply from other countries: there is no GST-free food, entertaining is claimable, and kitchen equipment goes through capital allowances. This is a Singapore hospitality chart of accounts built for Xero, with those treatments coded onto F&B-specific accounts. It ships as a readable reference (CSV) and a Xero import CSV.

No GST-free food, on either side

Singapore has no zero-rated basic-food category. A GST-registered cafe or restaurant charges 9% on everything it sells, so the chart carries separate food and beverage sales and beverage and liquor sales revenue accounts, both defaulting to Standard-Rated Supplies. On the cost side, food and beverage purchases defaults to Standard-Rated Purchases, with Imports: taxable supplies listed for stock brought in through Customs. There is no need to split shelf-zero-rated from hot food the way a UK chart must, because in Singapore it is all standard-rated.

Entertainment is claimable here

This is the rule that surprises operators arriving from the UK or Australia: input tax on entertainment food and drink is recoverable in Singapore. The Entertainment account therefore defaults to Standard-Rated Purchases, not a blocked rate. The catch is narrow: food or other benefits provided to the spouse, child, or relative of staff are blocked under Regulation 26, so a family meal billed to the business is not claimable even though client and staff entertainment is. The chart keeps Entertainment claimable by default and leaves the family-benefit exception as a coding judgement.

Kitchen equipment and capital allowances

Commercial ovens, refrigeration, and fit-out are capital. The chart holds a kitchen equipment fixed asset that is deducted through capital allowances, because Singapore grants those in place of depreciation, and the accounting depreciation line is not deductible. A food and beverage inventory account tracks stock on hand.

Licences, cleaning, and consumables

Three more hospitality touches. Licences and permits defaults to Out Of Scope Purchases, because government food-shop and liquor licence fees sit outside GST, a fee that is easy to mis-code as a standard-rated purchase. Cleaning and laundry and kitchen consumables and packaging are ordinary standard-rated costs with claimable input tax.

How to use it

1. Open the CSV: each account carries its class, a default Xero GST code, the other valid codes, and a note. The F&B sales, stock, and kitchen accounts are the hospitality additions.
2. In Xero, go to Accounting, then Chart of accounts, then Import, and upload the CSV, into a demo org first.
3. Confirm the Singapore tax rates exist in your org.
4. Keep the entertainment details (who, why) against each entertainment receipt, because food-and-drink input tax can be claimed without a full tax invoice but needs that evidence.

The recurring work is the supplier ledger:

• Dext pulls recurring food and drink supplier bills into the file.
• ExpenseFlow reads each receipt and bill, codes it to the right F&B account with the correct GST treatment, keeps entertainment claimable while flagging a benefit that looks like it is for staff family, and posts it into Xero, so the ledger stays clean as covers grow.
• StoreHub and similar POS tools feed daily takings through to the sales accounts.

One point the chart cannot enforce: the family-benefit line on entertainment. The accounts keep entertainment claimable by default; whether a particular meal crosses into a blocked private benefit is a judgement at capture. A second judgement the chart leaves open is the capital-versus-expense line on equipment, since a small bench appliance is an expense while a walk-in chiller is plant claimed through capital allowances, and only a person who sees the invoice can tell which a given purchase is.

On QuickBooks instead? See the Singapore hospitality chart of accounts for QuickBooks. For the full GST picture, see the Singapore hospitality expenses guide.