Landed cost accounting UAE traders can use to price with confidence

You ask in plain English, the AI does the bookkeeping work, and you or your accountant approve the result.

• You ask: “Allocate the freight, duty and clearing bills for shipment SH-2610 across its items by value.”
• The AI agent: The AI gathers the bills tagged to SH-2610, totals the costs that belong in inventory, allocates them across the shipment's items by value, and drafts a journal moving those costs into stock.
• You review: Your accountant checks which costs belong in inventory, chooses the allocation basis (value, weight or volume) and approves the journal.

Under common accounting practice, the cost of inventory includes the purchase price plus costs to bring it to its present location, such as import duties, freight and handling. Recoverable taxes are not part of cost: import VAT you can recover goes to the VAT account, not into stock.

• Include: freight, insurance, customs duty, clearing and port charges
• Exclude: recoverable import VAT
• Tag every related bill with the shipment reference
• Allocate by value, weight or volume; document your choice

Post the supplier invoice to stock as normal. Post freight, duty and clearing bills to a goods-in-transit or landed-cost clearing account, tagged with the shipment reference. Once all costs are in, the AI allocates them across items and drafts a journal from the clearing account into inventory.

Because the step is manual, timing matters: if goods are sold before the freight bill arrives, the margin on those sales is overstated. The AI lists shipments with costs still sitting in clearing at month end.

Goods cost USD 40,000, recorded at AED 146,900. Freight and insurance are AED 9,100, customs duty AED 7,800, clearing and port charges AED 2,450. Landed cost is AED 166,250, so every AED 1 of supplier cost carries about AED 0.13 of extra cost.

A pot set bought at AED 73.45 now costs AED 83.13 in stock. Pricing on AED 73.45 would have given away nearly AED 10 of margin per unit. If you import regularly and want landed cost built into your setup, discuss your needs at /book-a-demo; we record each customisation request.