Empower vs Money Forward Cloud

Empower's advisory services require different minimums based on service level. Personal Strategy advisory requires a minimum of $100,000 in investable assets. Private Client services require $1,000,000 or more.

Not realistically on your own. The interface, support and the tax concepts themselves are Japanese. Companies that succeed with it have a bilingual bookkeeper or an English speaking tax accountant operating it.

Advisory fees are calculated based on the amount of assets being managed under advice. Specific fee rates are not disclosed on the homepage.

Yes. Capturing and validating supplier registration numbers and retaining invoices in the required form is one of the main reasons Japanese companies moved to it around the 2023 introduction.

Yes. Empower's high-yield cash account has no account fees and no minimum balance required.

Both are Japanese cloud suites covering similar ground. freee is often described as easier for non accountants, Money Forward as closer to conventional bookkeeping and preferred by many tax accountants. The practical tiebreaker is which one your accountant already uses.

Empower offers commission-free trading for stocks and ETFs with low fees.

The suite supports the bookkeeping and much of the preparation, and there are filing oriented products in the family, but Japanese corporate tax filing is normally done by a licensed tax accountant. Treat it as the record keeping layer, not the filer.

No, not as an accounting system. Its value is the Japanese tax and filing logic, and none of that applies elsewhere.

Payroll is a separate module with its own subscription and a per employee element, as are attendance and expenses. Price the whole stack for your headcount rather than the accounting plan alone.