Who exactly are you dealing with? Check the TIN, check SSM, then build the right contact in the system

Hook

Boss, one question: on the last invoice you issued, the customer's name on it — was that his company's legal name, or the name on his signboard? "Same thing lah, everybody knows who it is." That used to be true. It is not any more — an invoice now needs the other party's number, and if the number does not match, that document is stuck. Two things today. First, how to confirm who the other party actually is. Second, once you have confirmed it, how to build that contact inside your accounting system. The second one has more to it than you think.

First stop: SSM e-Info, three things to collect

Start with checking the company. SSM's e-Info is the official source. Three things to take from it. One, the legal name — not a single character may be changed. The signboard says "Ah Meng Hardware"; the legal name might be "Ah Meng Hardware Trading Sdn. Bhd." The invoice has to use the legal one. Two, the new registration number. That is the twelve-digit string, the kind issued from 2023. Every system today recognises that string. Three, the old registration number — the old format, the one with a letter at the end. Why do you still need the old number? Because the old documents are still alive: bank records, old contracts, that contact card you built yourself ten years ago — all of them carry the old number. Keep both numbers and your reconciliation and your identification still join up later (the contact records from the sixth lesson). While you are there, look at two more things: whether the company is still active, and its registered address. A company that has already been struck off but is still placing orders with you is another story altogether.

Second stop: Carian TIN, confirm the tax identity

You have the name and the number, and one thing is still missing: the TIN. MyTax has a search function that lets you verify the other party's TIN against the name and the number. It solves this problem: is the string of digits in your hand really the one that belongs to that company? Three moments to use it. One, the first transaction with a new customer or new supplier — check once, and get it done while you are creating the record. Two, the number they gave you looks odd — wrong number of digits, wrong prefix, or they are being evasive about it — check. Three, an invoice comes back rejected by the system — check the number before you blame the system. A reminder: once you have found it, save it. Save it in the contact card; do not look it up again every single time. (The twenty-fourth lesson: do it once, do not repeat the work.) And one attitude to get straight: checking a number is not distrust. It runs both ways — they will check you too. Getting your own name, number and address in order, on one standard particulars card you can send the moment a new customer asks — that in itself is professionalism.

One company, several contacts — why

Right, now the most interesting part. You have confirmed that the other party is one legal entity. So in the accounting system — Bukku, say — do you just build one contact card? Not necessarily. Very often you will deliberately build several contacts for the same legal entity. That is not mess. It is so you can see. The three most common reasons. Reason one: a different settlement currency. The same supplier, some invoices settled in ringgit and some in Singapore dollars. Mix them on one card and your payables are a pile of currencies stacked on top of each other, and you will never work out what you owe him. One currency, one card — every card's balance is clean, and the exchange difference lands in the right place (the reasoning from the ninth lesson, moved across to the ledger side). Reason two: a different branch or outlet. A chain customer, goods delivered to five outlets. You need to know which outlet took what and owes how much. One card for head office and you see one total; a card for each outlet and you can see which one orders most and which one is slowest to pay. (Head office still makes the payment? Never mind — the cards are for seeing; record the payment as it happened.) Reason three: a different warehouse or location. The supplier has two warehouses, the northern one delivers fast and the southern one is often out of stock; or you have two warehouses of your own and the same supplier serves both. Build them separately and you can tell whether the problem is the supplier, or a particular point.

Split them apart, and still put them back together

Splitting has one condition: you must be able to put them back together. Otherwise, a year from now you will have seventeen cards that all look alike and nobody will know which is which. Three rules. First, name them to a rule. Ours is: brand, legal short name in brackets, dot, branch — the name you use every day first, the legal entity in brackets, the branch or warehouse after the dot. Sorting then puts the same company together automatically. (That is the naming rule in SOP002.) Second, the statutory particulars are written once, and are the same on every card. Legal name, new and old registration numbers, TIN — every card carries them, and they must be identical. That way the system can tell them apart, and when you invoice and report they all point at the same legal entity. Third, work out first what report you want to see. This is the most important one. You are not splitting for the sake of splitting, you are splitting in order to see. You want to see the gross profit of each outlet — split by outlet. You want to see how much of your payables are in Singapore dollars — split by currency. You do not want to see it — do not split. Every extra card is a little more maintenance every month. A split has to buy you a figure you will actually look at; otherwise you are only making work for yourself.

To close

In summary. Identifying them, two steps. SSM e-Info for the legal name, the new number and the old number; Carian TIN to verify the tax identity — check once, save it into the contact card, done for good. Building the card, one principle. A contact in the system is not the other party's name card, it is the angle you want to see them from. Currency, branch, warehouse — splitting them is so you can see; consistent naming and identical statutory particulars are so you can put them back together. Get the name right, the number right and the card right, and every document, every reconciliation and every report after that is easier. Documents in a box, all over the place? Contact cards you cannot recognise yourself any more? Grab a coffee first and talk about your business. For the accounting, come to LTT. I am LTT, helping SME bosses get their accounts straight. Follow us, and see you next time.