twofour54 company accounting for media and entertainment firms

A twofour54 events company stages a three-day festival for a client with a fee of AED 2.3 million. It pays for staging, sound, lighting, artists, security and catering, much of it in the final week. The company needs the event's margin at the end of the night, not three months later.

Every bill and expense claim is tagged to the event in HelloBooks. The AI agent reads supplier invoices as they arrive, including Arabic ones, codes them to the event and the right cost line, and holds anything above the producer's limit for approval. The owner asks "what is the margin on the festival so far?" and gets the answer with the bills behind it.

Media production and events are not listed as qualifying activities in the FTA guide. For a twofour54 company, qualifying income will mostly come from clients that are free zone persons and the beneficial recipients. Contracts with mainland government entities, mainland brands or overseas broadcasters are likely to be non-qualifying, and ticket sales to individuals are normally excluded.

Worked example: an events firm with AED 9 million of revenue. AED 6.5 million comes from a mainland government-related client, AED 2 million from companies in other free zones and AED 500,000 from ticket sales. Non-qualifying revenue of AED 7 million is far above the cap of AED 450,000. The company would be taxed at the regular rates, keeping the 0% band on its first AED 375,000 of taxable income.

• Event and production tags on all income and costs
• Client type on every customer: free zone, mainland, government-related, individual
• Ticket income in its own account

International productions pay in USD, GBP or EUR, and crews may be paid in AED. HelloBooks invoices in any of those currencies, keeps the AED value and posts exchange differences on settlement. Staff salaries run in HelloTime and post to HelloBooks as journals.

Production companies often want budget-style reports and a chart of accounts that matches their cost report. Those, along with approval rules by producer, can be set up for you; book a call at /book-a-demo or email hello@hellobooks.ai.