Dubai Internet City company accounting for tech firms and regional offices

A typical DIC subsidiary of a European software group employs a sales and support team covering the Middle East and Africa. Every month it adds up salaries, rent, travel and overheads, applies a mark-up agreed in the group's transfer pricing policy, and invoices the parent. In a year with AED 6 million of costs and a 7% mark-up, it would bill AED 6.42 million and report a profit of AED 420,000.

HelloBooks posts those costs from bills, expense claims and the HelloTime payroll journal, then the AI agent drafts the monthly recharge invoice from the cost total and your mark-up. The finance lead approves it before it goes. The invoice is in EUR or USD if that is how the group settles, with the FX difference tracked when cash arrives.

The FTA guide lists headquarter services to related parties among qualifying activities, with conditions in Ministerial Decision No. 265 of 2023. Whether a sales-support entity's services fall inside that definition is a question for the group's tax advisers, and the answer differs from company to company.

Whatever the outcome, the free zone conditions apply in full: adequate substance in the zone, audited financial statements, related-party pricing at arm's length and transfer pricing documentation. If the entity fails any condition, the FTA guide says it ceases to be a qualifying free zone person from the start of that tax period and for the following four periods.

• Cost pools by department for the recharge calculation
• Mark-up applied by a recurring invoice template
• Intercompany balances reconciled monthly with the AI agent

Not every DIC company is a subsidiary. Start-ups that sell services to customers across the UAE and abroad keep ordinary books: invoices, bills, bank statements and VAT. For them, the questions are cash runway and whether non-qualifying revenue fits inside the de minimis cap of AED 5 million or 5% of revenue, whichever is lower.

The AI tags each invoice by customer type so a founder can see the split, and answers questions like "how many months of runway do we have at last quarter's burn?" Custom charts of accounts, cost-centre structures and recharge templates can be set up by booking a call at /book-a-demo or writing to hello@hellobooks.ai.