Accounting tools, filing deadlines, invoices, and receipt requirements

Up-Sider (up-sider.com) offers corporate credit cards for startups and mid-size businesses, integrating with Freee HR/ERP with receipt scanning and support; PayPay for Business allows up to 4 cards. MoneyForward is functionally almost identical to freee, reportedly with fewer hidden costs and more helpful guides on its site; it's used, among other things, for the 給与支払報告書 (salary-payment report). Both services reportedly get users through the blue-form filing without issues. MoneyForward has no public API, so automatic integrations (transaction import, etc.) can't be built the way they can with freee; no direct MoneyForward-Wise integration has been found either. MoneyForward's pricing is more flexible than freee's. Yayoi (弥生会計) is popular among local Japanese accountants — most local bookkeepers and businesses reportedly use desktop Yayoi unless they specifically need freee; its web version works less well with Google Translate, which was the reason one user switched from Yayoi to freee. Misoca (from Yayoi) is a free invoicing service meeting Japanese standards, for up to 10 invoices/month. freeway-keiri.com was mentioned, though not everyone has confirmed a good experience with it. GnuCash is a free double-entry ledger alternative with built-in support for generating some Japanese forms, with instructions in Japanese. inoshi.cc is a useful aggregator of Japanese business deadlines and a reference for entrepreneurs: tax-filing dates, penalties for non-filing, legal grounds, an SMBC Trunk guide, and an article on shareholder meetings. Receipts and supporting documents must be kept for 5-7 years (sources vary; nta.go.jp officially states 7 years for most documents and 5 years for some). Japanese bookkeeping is very paper-based — after the annual report, the accountant hands over physical document packages that need to be kept for 10 years according to another source in the chat. For companies without an annual report to file on their own — for example, companies whose only activity is a shareholder loan to cover office rent — it's possible to prepare the annual report yourself by booking a free consultation at the tax office, where staff help fill out the paperwork on the spot from the provided books (one example: translating a P&L statement into Japanese via Google Translate). Note there can be two separate tax offices (national and municipal) that both need a visit. The "do it by hand" approach (without hiring an accountant) is a real, workable method for the first years of a business — one participant used it for about 5 years before hiring an accountant. Some tax offices (e.g., in Yokohama) have free volunteers helping fill out returns during filing season; others (e.g., in Nagoya) may just send you off to figure it out yourself. The National Tax Agency (NTA) itself runs educational bookkeeping courses, with some material in English, though aimed mainly at officials; an English-language course on international bookkeeping standards is 日商簿記３級 (Nissho Bookkeeping Level 3). Other useful references: a Yayoi memo on necessary sole-proprietor expenses (経費), an official NTA PDF on withholding tax from payments, an English-language tax booklet for foreign businesses from mipro.or.jp, and an article on officers' salary taxation from tk-tax-accounting.com. The annual report is due within 2 months of the end of the company's fiscal year; for KK holders the tax payment must be made by that same deadline. There is no public, centralized database of company financial statements in Japan (unlike Russia's USRLE) — KK companies are required to publish their statements, but each company chooses where (e.g., in newspapers), making it hard to find a specific company's filings. Meal expenses on business trips or client meetings (keihi) require a separate record of meeting attendees to justify the business purpose in a possible audit. An invoice (請求書) is usually issued in free form (often a PDF) and must show the company number and the tax amount separately. A sole proprietor has no corporate number, unlike a company, so its invoices can follow a free template; the 10% tax rate is often shown even when the sole proprietor isn't obligated to pay it. The T-number (invoice system, 適格請求書発行事業者 / qualified invoice issuer) isn't mandatory by default but is often required by clients; the consumption-tax report is filed separately once turnover exceeds the threshold. A receipt (領収書) for tax purposes needs the transaction date, payer's name, amount (usually tax-inclusive), a description of the transaction, and the seller's name; when used as an invoice it additionally needs the seller's registration number and the tax rate(s) and tax amount by rate. For imported purchases (Amazon US, B&H, Epic Games, Cloudflare, etc.), ordinary foreign receipts are accepted without issue — what matters to the tax office is the amount and the link to business activity. Source: https://biz.moneyforward.com/payroll/basic/79641/#i-3 — MoneyForward guide on preparing the 給与支払報告書 (salary-payment report). Source: https://www.yayoi-kk.co.jp/kaikei/ — Official Yayoi Kaikei website. Source: https://www.yayoi-kk.co.jp/seikyusho/ — Misoca (Yayoi) free invoicing service. Source: https://freeway-keiri.com/ — freeway-keiri accounting service website. Source: https://s5b2d02b1b579b9eb.jimcontent.com/download/version/1685549327/module/10277101350/name/gnucash20230531.pdf — GnuCash instructions in Japanese. Source: https://inoshi.cc/ru — Aggregator of business deadlines and reference material for entrepreneurs in Japan. Source: https://www.nta.go.jp/ — Official Japanese National Tax Agency (NTA) site with document retention periods. Source: https://www.nta.go.jp/about/organization/ntc/english/index.htm — NTA educational bookkeeping courses (partly in English). Source: https://note.com/bookkeeping_eng/n/nf69b4caa9288 — English-language course on international bookkeeping standards (日商簿記３級). Source: https://www.yayoi-kk.co.jp/fukugyo/oyakudachi/keihi — Yayoi memo on necessary sole-proprietor expenses (経費). Source: https://www.nta.go.jp/publication/pamph/gensen/shikata_r07/pdf/16.pdf — Official NTA memo on withholding tax from payments. Source: https://www.mipro.or.jp/Document/hti0re0000000vcf-att/Tax_e.pdf — English-language tax booklet for foreign businesses from mipro.or.jp. Source: https://tk-tax-accounting.com/en/english-officers-salary-for-tax-purposes-directors-auditors-liquidators/ — Article on officers' salary taxation.