What’s Included in a Monthly Accounting Package in Dubai?

This is Guide 2 of the startup accounting series — the deep dive behind the bundled services hub. That guide told you a monthly accounting package should cover books, VAT and Corporate Tax together; this one opens the box and shows every deliverable, the fixed cycle it arrives on, and exactly what your accountant needs from you — the operating detail of the accounting service that runs from AED 499/month.

How Does the Monthly Accounting Cycle Work?

The service runs on a fixed rhythm, so you always know when to expect your financials and what to send:

The working-day clocks start when your documents land, not on the calendar date — the full benchmark table for every deliverable, including audit-ready statements and backlog work, is published in our turnaround-times guide.

What Are the Monthly Deliverables, Exactly?

Four items arrive every month, each doing a different job:

How Does the Quarterly VAT Return Process Work?

In months where your VAT return is due — tax periods are typically quarterly, as assigned by the FTA — a fourth workflow joins the cycle, built directly on the books rather than a parallel spreadsheet. Your accountant reviews every transaction’s VAT treatment (standard-rated, zero-rated, exempt, out of scope), prepares the draft return, shares it for your sign-off, and files it on EmaraTax under Fastlane’s registered tax agent linkage to your account — within 28 days of the tax period end. If VAT is payable, you receive the amount and the due date in the same message, in time to fund it.

What “payment notification” looks like in dirhams: a quarter with AED 420,000 of standard-rated sales carries output VAT of 5% = AED 21,000; AED 180,000 of VAT-bearing expenses gives recoverable input VAT of AED 9,000; the return nets to AED 12,000 payable — a number you see on the draft before it is filed, never as a surprise after.

How Is the Annual Corporate Tax Return Handled?

Once a year, the same books flow into the CT cycle: the full-year P&L is adjusted for CT-specific items — disallowable expenses, exempt income — the draft computation and return are shared for your review and sign-off, and the return is filed on EmaraTax within nine months of your financial year end, with the payment amount and deadline advised where CT is due. New entities get CT registration (AED 199) handled at the start so the annual cycle has somewhere to file into.

What Do You Need to Provide Each Month?

Four things, usually over WhatsApp — there is no portal to learn:

1. Bank statements — PDFs for every company account, covering the previous month.
2. Sales invoices — everything raised during the month, if not already living in the accounting software.
3. Expense receipts — supplier invoices and receipts for business purchases.
4. Payroll summary — salaries paid in the month, where the payroll and WPS service on the Growth package applies.

The reminder lands on the 1st; most clients complete the entire handover in under ten minutes. The faster the documents arrive, the earlier the 5–7-day statement clock finishes.

Which Deliverables Come With Which Package?

Everything above is included in both packages; the Growth tier adds the layers that arrive with headcount and audits:

The full package comparison and the provider-selection checklist live in the series hub; the small-business variant sits on the SME accounting page.

What’s Not Included in the Monthly Package?

Honest scope beats surprise invoices, so three exclusions worth knowing upfront. The external audit opinion itself — an independent auditor must sign that, and independence rules mean the firm preparing your books shouldn’t also audit them; what the package delivers is the audit-ready IFRS statements your auditor works from. Historic backlog clean-ups — periods before the engagement started are scoped and quoted separately (benchmarks in the turnaround-times guide). And one-off projects — company incorporation, licence changes and similar transactions are their own engagements. Everything recurring — books, statements, MIS, reconciliations, VAT, CT — is inside the monthly fee.

Where Does This Guide Sit in the Series?

Guide 2 of the startup accounting series: the bundled services hub covers where to find packages and how to choose a provider; this guide opens the deliverables; the turnaround-times benchmarks publish the working-day clocks; and the remaining guides cover VAT + CT filing for startups, the Zoho Books vs QuickBooks vs Xero decision, and the accounting mistakes that trigger FTA penalties. Together with the accounting services pillar, it is the whole map from first invoice to audit-ready.