How to package bookkeeping VAT and corporate tax as one monthly fee

Clients think in terms of outcomes: “keep me compliant and tell me how I am doing.” When VAT is priced per return and corporate tax as a year-end project, every quarter becomes a new negotiation. A single fee turns compliance into a subscription with a predictable invoice.

For the firm, the three services share the same raw material. Bank statements reconciled for bookkeeping are the same data that feeds the VAT 201 and the corporate tax computation. Pricing them together reflects how the work actually happens.

Scope creep kills bundled fees. Define the package by volume and output, not by hours.

• Up to a set number of bank transactions a month across a set number of accounts, for example 250 across two accounts.
• Up to a set number of sales invoices and supplier bills processed.
• Monthly P&L and balance sheet by a fixed working day.
• Four quarterly VAT 201 returns prepared for review and filing, or twelve for monthly filers.
• One annual corporate tax computation and return preparation, excluding transfer pricing documentation and audits.

Start from cost to deliver. Suppose a mid-sized client takes four hours of bookkeeper time monthly at an internal cost of AED 120 an hour, two hours of senior review each quarter for VAT at AED 250 an hour, and twelve hours for the corporate tax return at year end. Annual delivery cost is AED 5,760 plus AED 2,000 plus AED 3,000, so AED 10,760.

Add software, overhead and margin. A fee of AED 1,650 monthly, or AED 19,800 a year, gives a healthy margin while still looking good value against separately quoted VAT and corporate tax work. Smaller clients with one bank account might sit on an AED 950 tier; larger traders with multi-currency activity on an AED 2,800 tier.

The four bookkeeping hours in that example are mostly capture and matching. With HelloBooks, the AI agent reads bills and receipts in Arabic or English, posts them with a proposed VAT treatment and matches uploaded bank statement lines to invoices and bills. The bookkeeper’s job shifts to reviewing exceptions.

If review takes 90 minutes instead of four hours, the annual delivery cost of that client falls by about AED 3,600. You can keep the margin, lower the entry tier to win price-sensitive clients, or fund a better management pack. The VAT 201 and corporate tax figures still come from the same reviewed ledger, and a person still files on EmaraTax.

Corporate tax returns are due within nine months of the tax period end, so for December year ends the work lands in the following summer. Bundling smooths that spike into the monthly fee, but only if the books are kept current all year. Make “books reconciled monthly” a condition of the package, not a hope.

Clients near the AED 375,000 taxable income line, or those considering small business relief with revenue under AED 3 million, need a short advisory conversation each year. Price that conversation into the top tiers or as a fixed add-on.

Be equally clear about what the client must do. A bundled fee only holds if statements arrive by the 3rd, receipts are snapped on the day and new contracts are shared before the first invoice goes out. Write those obligations into the package so a late client becomes a scope conversation, not a silent cost to the firm.

Exclude audits, VAT voluntary disclosures, FTA audit support, payroll and e-invoicing implementation from the base fee. List them as add-ons with indicative AED prices. Clients appreciate knowing what costs extra before they need it, and your team stops doing unpaid work quietly.

Existing clients who pay separately for VAT returns and year-end work are the easiest to convert. Add up what each paid over the last twelve months, show them the monthly bundle and point out what they gain: management accounts they never had, and no surprise corporate tax invoice in the summer.

A Dubai trading client paying AED 9,000 a year for quarterly bookkeeping, AED 6,000 for four VAT returns and an expected AED 5,000 for its corporate tax return is already spending AED 20,000. A bundle at AED 1,650 monthly costs about the same and delivers more, which makes the conversation short.