SAIF Zone accounting for traders and light manufacturers

A SAIF Zone trader of home appliances might hold stock in a zone warehouse, ship containers to Iraq and East Africa, and sell smaller lots to Sharjah and Dubai retailers. Stock has to be counted by location and valued correctly, and every movement in or out of the zone needs paperwork that the accountant can find.

HelloBooks tracks stock by item; the Business plan adds multi-warehouse and batch tracking. The AI agent reads purchase invoices and delivery notes, updates quantities and attaches the documents to each entry. Freight, clearing and duty post to their own accounts, since landed cost is not spread across items automatically.

• Stock by item and warehouse on the Business plan
• Shipping and customs documents attached to each sale
• USD purchases recorded with AED values and FX differences

The FTA guide counts distribution of goods in or from a designated zone among qualifying activities, with conditions in Ministerial Decision No. 265 of 2023. Manufacturing and processing are listed too. A trader therefore needs each sales line tagged by what was sold, to whom and where it went, so a tax agent can test it against those conditions.

Worked example: revenue of AED 14 million, of which AED 12.6 million is re-exports and sales to other free zone companies, AED 1.1 million is sales to mainland retailers, and AED 300,000 is sales to individuals at the warehouse counter. The individual sales are normally excluded. If the mainland sales also turn out to be non-qualifying, total non-qualifying revenue is AED 1.4 million, well over the AED 700,000 cap of 5% of revenue.

The FTA guide says failing a condition means losing qualifying status for that tax period and the next four, so a single bad year has a five-year cost. The AI agent tags every sale by customer type and destination, and the owner can ask at any time "what is our non-qualifying revenue so far this year?" to see where the company stands against the cap.

Light manufacturers in SAIF Zone also need fixed assets, depreciation and payroll posted cleanly, because adequate substance is one of the FTA conditions. For a trading chart of accounts, warehouse reports or approval rules on purchase orders, book a call through /book-a-demo or write to hello@hellobooks.ai.