Facility management & manpower accounting, UAE
Accounting for a business that sells hours of people, not hours of work
Hard and soft services, manpower and maintenance contracts, costed contract by contract. Every post priced for the people it really takes, and a cash plan for clients who pay three months after you do.
Three things that break an FM company’s books
Not general accounting with a payroll attached. These are the places facility management and manpower companies lose money, and each one starts with a number.
A post is not a person
A guard desk open around the clock needs 168 hours a week. One worker gives you 48 ordinary hours. Price that post as one salary and the contract was lost the day it was signed.
Salaries leave before the money arrives
Wages go out every month through WPS. The client pays the invoice sixty or ninety days later. A contract can make money every month and still drain cash for its whole first year.
The cost behind the payslip
Accommodation, transport, visas, health insurance, gratuity and leave sit behind every salary. Leave them out of the rate per head and every contract you win makes the problem bigger.
How many people does one 24‑hour post take?
One security desk, staffed every hour of the week in three eight-hour shifts. Each tile is the person on duty. The ringed tile is the shift on duty in Dubai right now.
- Anil, 6 shifts
- Bilal, 6 shifts
- Carlo, 6 shifts
- Dawit, covers the rest days
Ordinary working hours are capped at eight a day or 48 a week, and overtime at two hours a day, paid at a premium of at least 25%. So a post priced as one salary is short by more than two and a half people before anyone falls ill. The rate on the contract has to be a rate per post, built from the people a post really takes.
Profitable every month. AED 227,400 down by the third.
The green ticks are what the profit and loss shows. The gold columns are what the bank shows. Both are drawn to the same scale, month by month, from the day the contract is mobilised.
- Mobilisation: visas, medicals, uniforms, kit
- Salaries paid, nothing received
- Client paying, 90 days behind
The profit and loss will not warn you. The cash forecast will.
Nothing here is a loss. It is working capital: three months of salaries and the mobilisation, carried until the client pays. It still has to come from somewhere, and an FM company that wins three contracts in a quarter has to find it three times.
An illustrative contract, not a quote and not a benchmark. Payment terms, margins and mobilisation costs vary; the shape is what matters.From the roster to the filed return
One team that reads your contracts, your payroll and your WPS file together, and keeps every site’s numbers in its own column.
Profit by contract and site
Every contract carrying its own revenue, manpower, materials and subcontractor costs, so you can see which sites pay and which ones you are subsidising.
Payroll and WPS
Monthly payroll run and reconciled to the Wage Protection System file, with overtime, deductions and site allocations agreed before anything is paid.
Gratuity and leave provisions
End-of-service and leave liabilities built up worker by worker every month, so a resignation or a lost contract is a planned payment rather than a surprise.
Receivables and the cash forecast
Invoices chased against their terms, and a rolling forecast of how much cash the next contract needs before it pays, while you are still pricing it.
Materials and subcontractors
Spare parts, consumables and specialist subcontractors coded to the contract they belong to, and recharged at the rate and VAT treatment the contract says.
VAT and Corporate Tax
Returns filed inside the 28-day window, and Corporate Tax at 9% above AED 375,000 calculated on contract records that stand up to a question.
Four steps, then it runs
Most FM clients are on a normal monthly close by the end of their second month with us.
Contract and payroll review
We look at how contracts are priced, how manpower is allocated to sites, and how payroll, gratuity and leave are recorded today.
Set up contract costing
One cost code per contract and site, so every salary, part and subcontractor lands where it was spent.
Close by contract
Payroll reconciled to WPS, provisions updated, materials and receivables agreed, contract by contract.
Returns and the cash view
VAT filed inside the window, a profit report by contract, and a forecast of what the next contract will need.
Questions FM owners ask us
Gratuity, health insurance, VAT on recharges. If yours is not here, ask it on WhatsApp and an adviser will answer.
Ask on WhatsAppHow should we provide for end-of-service gratuity?+
Every month, worker by worker, rather than when someone leaves. For a foreign full-time worker with at least a year of service, gratuity is 21 days’ basic wage for each of the first five years and 30 days for each year after that, and it has to be paid soon after the contract ends. With a large workforce that is one of the biggest liabilities on your balance sheet — it should be in the accounts and in your contract pricing, not discovered at the exit.
Do we have to pay for our workers’ health insurance?+
Yes. Since 1 January 2025 employers in every emirate must provide health insurance for their private-sector workers, paid when the residence permit is issued or renewed — before that only Dubai and Abu Dhabi required it. For a manpower business it is a per-head cost that belongs in every rate you quote.
How many people should we price for a 24‑hour post?+
More than three and a half. A week is 168 hours and ordinary working hours are capped at 48 a week, which is 3.5 people before anyone takes leave; covering thirty days of annual leave takes it to about 3.8. Overtime can fill gaps, but it is limited to two hours a day and paid at a premium of at least 25%, so it is a cost to plan, not a free buffer.
Do we charge VAT on manpower supply and on materials we recharge?+
Facility management and manpower services are standard-rated at 5%. Materials and parts you buy and charge on as part of your service are normally part of that same supply and carry VAT too. A cost is only outside your VAT if it is a genuine disbursement — bought in the client’s name, on their behalf, and recovered at exactly what it cost. Most FM recharges are not.
When does an FM company have to register for VAT?+
Registration is mandatory once taxable supplies pass AED 375,000 in the previous twelve months, and voluntary from AED 187,500 — a level most FM companies pass with their first two or three contracts. Corporate Tax applies at 9% on taxable income above AED 375,000.
Talk to someone who has priced a 24‑hour post before
Thirty minutes, a look at how your contracts are costed and how your payroll and provisions are recorded, and an honest view of what is missing.
- Free first consultation
- No obligation
- Response within 24 hours