Accounting Software for Marketing Agencies in UAE | HelloBooks Retainers, media spend passed to clients, overseas ad platform bills and project margins for UAE marketing agencies, with an AI agent posting each job.
A digital agency in Dubai Media City bills a hospitality group a monthly retainer, runs AED 120,000 of paid social for it, pays freelance designers in Cairo and buys stock footage from a US site. Agencies often look bigger than they are because media spend runs through their books. HelloBooks separates fee income from pass-through media, records overseas bills with the reverse charge and shows margin per client, with the AI agent posting and you approving.
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The key split is between what the agency earns and what it simply passes on. HelloBooks gives agencies this layout, with a class per client.
Agency services to UAE clients are standard-rated at 5%. Whether rebilled media is your own supply or a pass-through depends on the contract and on whether you buy the media in your own name, so agree the position with your tax agent before you set your invoice format. Services to clients outside the UAE may be zero-rated as exports where the conditions are met.
Ad platforms and software billed from outside the UAE are generally imported services, accounted for under the reverse charge on your VAT 201. The agent marks these bills when it sees a foreign supplier with no UAE TRN, and your accountant confirms the treatment.
Each month the agent drafts retainer invoices for every client, adds approved media rebills with their supporting statements attached, and posts freelancer invoices to the right client. Card charges from ad platforms are read from your statement upload and receipts, converted from USD and tagged to client campaigns.
Ask “what was our margin on the hotel group after media?” or “which media costs from September have not been rebilled?” You review rebill invoices before they go out and approve freelancer payments.
Fee income per client, margin after freelancers, unbilled media and staff cost as a share of fee income give a true picture. An agency with AED 2.4 million of billings may have only AED 900,000 of fee income once media is removed, and that is the number to manage against.
If you run retainers with overage hours, or want a client-facing media statement in your brand, ask the team at hello@hellobooks.ai or via /book-a-demo.
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How HelloBooks fits the books, VAT treatment and reporting of each UAE sector.
Accounting firms: run HelloBooks under your own brand
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