Accounting software for architecture and engineering firms in UAE, organised by project

Consultancies are judged on project margin, so the ledger tags every fee and cost to a project. HelloBooks uses projects and classes alongside a chart designed for design and engineering practices.

• Fee income by stage: design, authority submissions, supervision and variations
• Unbilled work in progress and retentions receivable
• Sub-consultant fees (MEP, structural, landscape) as direct project costs
• Software licences, plotting and printing, and authority submission charges
• Professional indemnity insurance and engineering licence renewals

Design and engineering services supplied to UAE clients are standard-rated at 5%. Work for clients abroad is where care is needed: services relating to real estate located in the UAE are generally taxed where the property is, so designing a building in Dubai for a foreign developer can still carry UAE VAT. Services unconnected with UAE property supplied to an overseas business may qualify as a zero-rated export if the conditions are met.

HelloBooks lets you set the treatment per invoice line, and the agent asks which applies when a new overseas client appears. The decision itself should rest with you and your tax agent, with the FTA’s real estate guidance as reference.

Tell the agent “invoice 20% of the Al Furjan villa fee for detailed design” and it drafts a tax invoice against the fee schedule, showing the stage, the retention withheld and VAT. Sub-consultant invoices are read from PDF and posted to the right project. When a client pays, the bank statement line is matched to the open stage invoice.

Partners can ask “which projects are over budget on sub-consultant costs?” and see the list. You still approve every outgoing invoice and decide when a retention becomes billable.

The figures partners usually ask for are project profitability, fee billed versus fee earned, and retentions outstanding. For instance, an AED 600,000 fee with 60% billed and AED 290,000 of costs incurred shows how much margin is left before supervision starts.

Practices often want a fee-schedule invoice layout or approval rules where a second partner signs off invoices above a threshold. HelloBooks sets these up on request: book a session at /book-a-demo or write to hello@hellobooks.ai.