Accounting & Bookkeeping Services in Dubai

DirhamWise provides outsourced accounting services in Dubai for owner-managed companies: we record your transactions monthly, reconcile your banks and cards, keep records in the shape a VAT return needs, and close the year with financial statements your auditor and your corporate tax return can both rely on. Packages start at AED 950 a month. We work with mainland LLCs and free-zone companies from ParkLane Tower, Park Regis, Business Bay.

In short: outsourced accounting and bookkeeping runs from AED 950 a month and covers the monthly ledgers through to year-end financial statements. It works to deadlines set in law: the corporate tax return and the tax payment are both due nine months after the end of the tax period, records must be kept for seven years, and failing to keep them costs AED 10,000.

We publish three monthly fees so you can see the order of magnitude before you call. What separates them is workload.

Exactly what your plan includes is set out in your quotation before work starts. Some work is always quoted separately:

• Statutory audit and the issue of audited financial statements
• Backlog clean-up of months or years already gone by
• Corporate tax registration, VAT registration and VAT deregistration
• One-off advisory and responses to an FTA query or audit

You will see fees advertised well below AED 950. Read what they include: a fee covering data entry alone leaves you to reconcile the bank, chase missing invoices, build the VAT workings and rebuild it all at year-end, which is where the cost reappears. Compare on scope, not the headline. See our accounting packages and prices, or estimate your monthly fee.

Get a fixed monthly quote. Send us a month of bank statements and your trade licence and we will price the work in writing before we start. Call +971 56 500 6694 or email info@dirhamwise.com.

Monthly bookkeeping

Every transaction is recorded to the right account in the month it belongs to, not swept into a year-end catch-up: sales invoices and receipts, supplier bills and payments, expense claims, petty cash, payroll journals, loan and lease entries, and the fixed asset register. A month closes in a fixed order, which is what makes one month comparable to the next:

VAT-ready records

VAT returns and payment are due within 28 days of the end of the tax period, normally a quarter; businesses with annual turnover of AED 150 million or more file monthly. That is not long enough to build a return from a shoebox. We keep records in the shape the return needs as the month goes along — output tax by rate, recoverable input tax, reverse-charge items, credit notes and the invoices behind them — so the return is a reconciliation, not a reconstruction.

Two changes from 1 January 2026 land on the bookkeeping directly. Businesses no longer issue self-invoices under the reverse charge but must keep the supporting documents instead, so the evidence is filed against the entry rather than generated by the system. And an excess refundable tax or credit balance must be claimed or used within five years of the end of the relevant tax period, so a credit sitting on the VAT account is something to act on.

VAT registration is mandatory once taxable supplies and imports have exceeded AED 375,000 over the previous 12 months, or are expected to in the next 30 days; voluntary registration is available above AED 187,500, and taxable expenses count towards it. Our VAT consultants in Dubai take filing and disputes from here.

Year-end financial statements

At the year end we close the books properly: accruals and prepayments, provisions, stock, related-party balances, and a reconciliation of every control account. You receive a statement of financial position, a statement of profit or loss and the schedules an auditor will ask for. The cleaner the closing file, the fewer queries an auditor has to raise.

Corporate-tax-ready accounts

Corporate tax starts from the accounting profit in your financial statements, so the return is only as reliable as the books underneath it. We keep the workpapers a return needs as we go: disallowable expenses tracked separately rather than reconstructed in September, related-party transactions identified, depreciation schedules maintained and the audit trail intact. Corporate tax is 0% on taxable income up to and including AED 375,000 and 9% above that — see UAE corporate tax rates for how the bands and exemptions work. Corporate tax return filing is a separate engagement.

The rules that bite depend on where your company holds its licence and how it is taxed.

A company incorporated on or after 1 March 2024 must also apply for corporate tax registration within three months of incorporation. A resident individual trading in their own name, rather than through a company, registers by 31 March of the year after the year their business turnover first exceeds AED 1 million.

Most backlog work is not carelessness. It is a founder doing the books alongside everything else until a deadline makes that impossible. Three do most of the damage:

• The corporate tax return. It must be filed and the tax paid no later than nine months after the end of the tax period — for a year ended 31 December 2025, that was 30 September 2026. A late return costs AED 500 per month for the first twelve months and AED 1,000 per month after that; late payment attracts 14% per annum, charged monthly.
• Licence renewal. IFZA licensees have submitted financial statements at every licence renewal since 30 September 2025, covering the most recently completed financial year. Simplified statements, on IFZA’s own template, are allowed only where turnover was at most AED 3 million and there were at most nine employees at any point in the year; otherwise they must be audited. Audited statements already prepared for the FTA are accepted.
• A QFZP audit. Every Qualifying Free Zone Person needs audited financial statements, whatever its revenue. An auditor cannot audit books that do not exist.

Backlog work runs in a fixed order: gather the raw material (bank and card statements for every open month, invoices, contracts, loan and payroll records); reconstruct the ledgers month by month, so the comparatives are usable; reconcile every bank account until the unidentified balance is nil; finalise accruals, provisions, depreciation and opening balances agreed to your last accounts; then hand a clean file to the auditor. It is quoted separately, because the effort depends on how many months are open.

Books months or years behind? Call +971 56 500 6694 or email info@dirhamwise.com and we will scope the clean-up and quote a fixed fee first.

People compare a salary against a monthly fee. That is the wrong comparison: salary is the smallest part of an in-house accountant.

Outsourcing is not always the answer: a business with high daily volumes or credit control to staff will want people in the building. The middle path is common — an in-house administrator handling invoicing and payments, with ledgers, reporting and year-end done by us. A part-time arrangement, a named accountant on your books for an agreed number of days a month, suits businesses that have outgrown a simple plan but cannot justify a full-time hire.

Bookkeeping tells you what happened; management information tells you what to do about it. Where your plan includes a monthly management pack, it is built from the same closed ledgers, so it agrees to the accounts rather than sitting in a spreadsheet beside them.

We can also run rolling cash-flow forecasting and prepare the reporting a bank or investor asks for — what people mean by CFO services in Dubai. It is not a substitute for the statutory accounts; it is the monthly read that stops the statutory accounts being a surprise.

For corporate tax purposes, Ministerial Decision 114 of 2023 sets the framework. It is driven by revenue, not preference.

IFRS for SMEs

IFRS for SMEs is a shorter standard with lighter disclosure, and it is what most Dubai owner-managed companies will use. It still requires accrual accounting and a complete set of statements — it removes disclosure, not discipline. Changing framework changes your comparatives and, potentially, your taxable income, so we agree it at the start rather than at the year end.

We are not tied to one system. If you already run a cloud package such as Zoho Books, Xero or QuickBooks, we work inside your file, so you keep ownership of your data and your login and nothing has to be migrated to start. If you have none yet, we set up the chart of accounts, tax codes, document storage and bank feeds before the first month is posted, rather than correcting the structure afterwards. Whatever you choose should be able to produce structured invoice data, because e-invoicing arrives in 2027.

Corporate tax records must be kept for seven years after the end of the tax period they relate to (Article 56, Federal Decree-Law 47 of 2022) — longer than the general five-year Tax Procedures period. The Ministry of Finance has announced that, from 1 April 2026, records linked to an unresolved refund or credit-balance claim are kept two further years.

Those penalties apply to the absence of records, not to underpaid tax: a business with nothing to pay can still be fined for being unable to produce its books.

E-invoicing changes what an invoice is. Invoices become structured XML exchanged through Accredited Service Providers in a five-corner OpenPeppol model; an emailed PDF will no longer be an e-invoice. The mandate covers any person conducting business in the UAE, not only VAT registrants. It applies to B2B and B2G; B2C is out of scope until the Minister decides otherwise.

Revenue is measured on the most recent accounting period’s financial statements — a reason in itself to have a finalised set. A business that is not VAT registered must issue and transmit its e-invoices within 14 days of the transaction; registrants follow the VAT Law timelines. Failing to implement the system or appoint an ASP costs AED 5,000 per month (Cabinet Resolution 106 of 2025); late issue or transmission of an e-invoice or credit note costs AED 100 per document, capped at AED 5,000 per month. Businesses that adopt voluntarily before their phase begins are exempt from those penalties until a mandatory phase catches them. DirhamWise is not an Accredited Service Provider; what we do is prepare the ground, so your master data and tax codes can produce what an ASP transmits.

1. A short call. What the business does, transactions a month, bank accounts, your VAT and tax position, your year end, and what is behind.
2. Scoping and a written quote. The plan, what it includes, what is billed separately and what the fee is.
3. Handover. You send the documents below; we review your last accounts and agree opening balances.
4. Set-up. Chart of accounts, tax codes, bank feeds and reporting configured, and the framework confirmed.
5. The monthly cycle. You send the month’s documents, we record and reconcile, you receive the reports and we flag what needs a decision.

What we need from you at the start:

What is the difference between bookkeeping and accounting?

Bookkeeping is the recording: entering transactions, reconciling the bank, maintaining payables and receivables, filing the documents behind them. Accounting builds on it: adjusting entries, accruals and provisions, closing the year, and preparing financial statements under the right framework. Bookkeeping answers “what happened”; accounting answers “what must be reported”.

What are bookkeeping services?

They cover the recurring work of keeping a company’s financial records: recording sales, purchases, receipts and payments; reconciling bank and card accounts; maintaining customer and supplier ledgers with ageing; recording payroll, fixed assets and depreciation; and filing the invoices behind the entries. In the UAE that also means records that support a VAT return within 28 days of the period end and a corporate tax return within nine months of the end of the tax period.

How much do bookkeeping services cost in Dubai?

Our monthly packages are AED 950, AED 1,650 and AED 2,150. Which applies depends on transaction volume, the number of accounts to reconcile, whether VAT return preparation is included and how much reporting you want. One-off work — backlog clean-up, registrations, audit — is quoted separately. Estimate your monthly fee or see our accounting packages and prices; either way you get a fixed fee in writing before work begins.

How do I do bookkeeping for a small business in the UAE?

Open a dedicated business bank account and stop running personal spending through it. Set up the chart of accounts and tax codes at the start rather than fixing them later. Record transactions weekly and reconcile every account each month, while you still remember what the differences were. Keep the source document for every entry — the FTA’s interest is in the evidence. Apply the right framework: IFRS by default, IFRS for SMEs at revenue of AED 50 million or less, the cash basis at AED 3 million or less. And keep records seven years.

Why is bookkeeping important for a UAE company?

Because three obligations draw on the same records. Corporate tax is computed from the accounting profit in your financial statements, and the return and payment are due nine months after the end of the tax period. VAT returns are due within 28 days of the period end. And the records are themselves a legal requirement: seven years for corporate tax, with a penalty of AED 10,000 for failing to keep them, or AED 20,000 if it happens again within 24 months.

Can you clean up accounts that are months or years behind?

Yes — backlog clean-up is a core part of what we do. We reconstruct the ledgers month by month from bank statements and source documents, agree opening balances to your last accounts, and finalise the year so it can go to an auditor or into a tax return. It is quoted as a fixed fee once we have seen how many periods are open.

Is outsourced accounting cheaper than hiring an accountant in Dubai?

For most Dubai SMEs, yes — but compare the whole cost, not the salary. An in-house hire brings visa and medical insurance at hire and at every renewal, end-of-service gratuity accruing throughout employment, software licences, cover during leave and recruitment costs when they leave. An outsourced plan is one agreed monthly fee. The case for hiring is strongest where volumes are high and daily.

Get a fixed monthly quote. Send us your trade licence and a recent bank statement and we will tell you what your books will cost before we start. Call +971 56 500 6694, email info@dirhamwise.com, or use the contact form. We are at ParkLane Tower, Park Regis, Business Bay, Dubai, Monday to Saturday, 9:00am – 6:00pm. Or compare plans on our accounting packages and prices page.