The Challenge
"I got three quotes from Dubai accountants and they're structured completely differently — one wants a flat monthly retainer, one quoted per VAT return, and one wants to bill me hourly for everything. How do I even compare these, and which model actually protects me from a surprise bill at year end?"
A growing trading company in Bur Dubai had outsourced its bookkeeping to a freelancer paid by the hour, and costs had become unpredictable — some months AED 2,000, other months AED 8,000, with no way to budget ahead. When the owner asked us to take over, the real question wasn’t which number was lowest, it was which billing structure matched how the work actually happens.
Our Approach
- Fixed/retainer fees dominate recurring compliance — bookkeeping, VAT return filing, and annual Corporate Tax return preparation are predictable, recurring workloads, so most UAE firms (us included) quote a fixed monthly or annual fee once transaction volume and complexity are scoped.
- Hourly billing is reserved for variable, one-off work — FTA audit responses, tax dispute representation, ad-hoc advisory queries, or historical clean-up projects don't have a predictable scope, so an hourly or capped-hours rate is fairer to both sides than forcing them into a flat fee.
- Scope and triggers for extra charges must be written down — a fair fixed-fee agreement states exactly what's included (transaction count, number of bank accounts, VAT periods, one CT return) and what triggers an additional charge (e.g. FTA penalty appeals, restated prior-period filings), so there are no surprise invoices.
- Scoping call, then a fixed quote. For recurring bookkeeping, VAT, and Corporate Tax compliance we quote a fixed monthly or annual fee after reviewing transaction volume and business complexity, and we only move to hourly billing for genuinely one-off advisory or FTA representation work — with the scope and rate agreed in writing before we start.
The Result
Ask any firm you’re comparing to put in writing what’s included in the fixed fee, what counts as “extra,” and the hourly rate that applies outside scope — a firm that can’t answer clearly is a red flag regardless of the number quoted. Once this client moved to a scoped fixed-fee retainer covering bookkeeping and VAT, with a separate pre-agreed hourly rate only for ad-hoc advisory, their accounting cost became a predictable monthly line item they could budget for, with no more surprise invoices.
The Takeaway
"Recurring compliance work — bookkeeping, VAT, Corporate Tax returns — should be a fixed fee with a written scope; only genuinely one-off work like FTA disputes should be billed hourly."
