How to Choose an InvoiceNow-Ready Solution

Once a business learns its GST InvoiceNow deadline, the next question is a shopping question: what software do we need?

Often the honest answer is "probably the one you already have, correctly configured." This guide covers how to verify that, what the alternatives cost, and the questions that separate a real InvoiceNow-Ready Solution from a confident sales answer.

Details reflect IRAS and IMDA guidance available on 21 August 2026.

The three routes

Every business meets the GST InvoiceNow Requirement through one of three routes:

1. Your existing accounting software, if it is accredited. If your product and plan appear on IMDA's list of accredited InvoiceNow-Ready Solution Providers (IRSPs), the work is activation and configuration, not procurement. Mainstream SME products — Xero, QuickBooks, Financio, and many local packages — participate; verify your exact plan rather than the brand name. Xero users can follow our Xero and InvoiceNow guide.

2. A Free-of-Charge (FOC) package. IMDA publishes a list of FOC solution packages available to GST-registered businesses — genuinely free tiers from participating providers, aimed at businesses whose current tooling cannot be made ready. Free refers to the package; your time for setup, data migration, and process change is still real.

3. Direct Access Point integration. Businesses running in-house or heavily customised systems connect through an IMDA-accredited Access Point Provider (AP) instead. This is an integration project with development work on your side — plan it like one, not like a software subscription.

The official lists live here and change over time — always check the current version:

The money: grants before invoices

Before comparing prices, know what offsets them:

Support	Who qualifies	Amount
GST InvoiceNow Transition Grant	SMEs (annual supplies ≤ S$4,000,000)	S$1,000
GST InvoiceNow Transition Grant	Larger businesses (annual supplies > S$4,000,000)	S$5,000
InvoiceNow Queen Bee Grant	Larger businesses (annual turnover > S$4,000,000)	S$25,000

Eligibility and applications run through IMDA's InvoiceNow grants page. For a typical SME, S$1,000 covers most or all of the direct onboarding cost — which is exactly why the real budget line is internal time, not licences.

Cost lines vendors mention quietly

When comparing quotes, ask for each of these explicitly:

Activation or onboarding fees — one-off setup charges, sometimes per entity
Per-document or transaction fees — a price per e-invoice sent or received; trivial at 30 invoices a month, material at 3,000
GST submission feature pricing — some products price IRAS transmission separately from network invoicing
Access-point fees — occasionally passed through separately from the software subscription
Plan-tier requirements — InvoiceNow capability sometimes starts only from a mid-tier plan, making the true cost a plan upgrade
Multi-entity pricing — each UEN needs its own registration; grouped billing does not merge the obligation

Eight questions that expose a weak answer

The setup guide has the full implementation checklist; these are the selection questions to ask before signing anything:

Is our exact product and plan on the current IMDA accredited list — not "Peppol compatible", not "coming soon"?
Does it support the GST InvoiceNow submission feature to IRAS, and is that live today for businesses like ours?
How does it transmit in-scope invoices for counterparties not on the network — and aggregated POS or petty-cash data if we have it?
Can we see a submission status view — delivered, failed, rejected — or do failures land in a support inbox?
How are credit notes and corrections transmitted and linked to originals?
What happens to our data and audit history if we leave the product?
Which access point sits behind the service, and who do we call when a document goes missing?
What is the all-in cost for our document volume — activation, subscription delta, per-document, and support?

A provider that answers all eight crisply is telling you about a product. A provider that answers three of them with "our team will get back to you" is telling you about your future support experience.

Red flags

"Peppol-ready" without appearing on the IMDA list. Accreditation is checkable in the official PDF; check it.
Demo-only GST submission. Delivered e-invoicing and delivered IRAS transmission are different features. Ask which customers use the second in production.
A new system pitched before a gap analysis. If the pitch starts with migration rather than with what your current software cannot do, slow down.
No answer on exports. If your transaction history cannot leave, the price of switching later is your audit trail.

Choosing by SME profile

Already on a mainstream cloud product (Xero, QuickBooks, Financio): stay put; activate and configure. Budget days, not months — mostly for data cleanup and testing.
On desktop software or spreadsheets: this is the moment to move to a cloud product from the accredited list, with the transition grant offsetting part of the cost. An FOC package is the minimum-cost fallback.
High-volume B2C (retail, F&B): the deciding features are POS aggregation and per-document pricing. Get both in writing before comparing anything else.
In-house system: engage an accredited AP early — integration timelines belong in your deadline back-plan at the six-month mark, not the last.

The bottom line

Choosing an InvoiceNow-Ready Solution is mostly a verification exercise: confirm your current software against the official list, price the gaps honestly, claim the grant, and spend your real effort on data quality and testing. Buy new software only when the gap analysis — not the salesperson — says so.

Unsure which route fits? Book a 30-minute discovery call — we will check your current stack against the requirement and map the invoice workflow around it, including the parts worth automating while you are in there.