Accounting Support for UAE Construction Businesses

Why construction records are different

Construction income is rarely a simple invoice-and-cash cycle. Certified work, variations, retention and advance payments all move the result for a period. If those items are posted as ordinary sales, the accounts and the VAT return drift apart.

Score Plus Auditing L.L.C works with contracting and specialist SMEs that need the project file and the ledger to describe the same job.

Bookkeeping that follows the project

Useful records for a contractor separate materials, subcontractors, plant and preliminaries by job, and keep retention as its own balance. Bank reconciliation still matters, because site payments are often made in cash-equivalents, transfers and post-dated arrangements that are easy to miscode.

• Job-level cost recording
• Subcontractor invoice review against the ledger
• Retention and advance balances
• Monthly reporting that management can compare with site progress

VAT and Corporate Tax

The tax point for a construction supply does not always match the date a payment is received. Progress applications, tax invoices and credit notes need to be read together. Input tax on project costs is only as recoverable as the underlying taxable supply and the invoice.

For Corporate Tax, the accounting profit has to be supportable. Provisions, retention released late, and costs claimed without documents are the items that usually need attention before a return is filed. Audit requirements, where they exist, depend on the entity and its licence, not on the fact that the activity is construction.