Dubai Studio City accounting for production houses

A Studio City production house wins a regional bank commercial with a budget of AED 950,000. Costs come from the director, crew day rates, camera and lighting rental, stage hire, catering, post-production and music licensing. HelloBooks tags every bill and expense claim to the production, so the producer sees spend by category against the budget lines you load at the start.

Crew invoices and receipts arrive from phones, often late and in both Arabic and English. The AI agent reads them, codes them to the production and the right cost line, and holds anything above the producer's limit for approval. Ask "how much have we spent on lighting for the bank shoot?" and you get the figure with the bills.

• Production tags on every bill and expense claim
• Approval limits per producer
• Budget lines loaded at kick-off and compared to actual spend

Production services are not on the FTA list of qualifying activities. A Studio City company's qualifying income would therefore mostly come from clients that are free zone persons and the beneficial recipients of the work. A commercial for a mainland bank, or a series for an overseas streaming platform, would then be non-qualifying revenue.

Here is a typical mix. Annual revenue of AED 11 million: AED 4 million from agencies in other free zones and AED 7 million from mainland and overseas clients. The cap is the lower of 5% of revenue (AED 550,000) and AED 5 million. With AED 7 million of non-qualifying revenue, the company is taxed at the regular rates. Stage hire and property income have their own rules in the FTA guide, which limits when immovable property income can be qualifying.

Overseas broadcasters pay in USD, GBP or EUR, often months after delivery. HelloBooks records each invoice in its currency with the AED value, posts the exchange gain or loss on payment and keeps an AR ageing per client. Payment reminders go out by email or WhatsApp on a schedule you set.

Production houses often want a chart of accounts that mirrors their budget template. That, along with approval rules by producer and custom production reports, can be set up by booking a call at /book-a-demo or emailing hello@hellobooks.ai.