Month-end with your accountant: what to send and when
A month-end pack for a small UAE shop or café: which reports and documents your accountant needs, what to reconcile first, and a timeline that keeps VAT returns calm.
Accounting inside your POS: how Books keeps the books from your till
Most small shops keep their sales in the till and their accounts in a spreadsheet, and someone retypes one into the other every month. Books puts the accounting in the same app as the till, so the sales arrive by themselves and your accountant works from the same figures.
At the end of the month, a typical shop owner hands the accountant a pile: the Z reports, a folder of supplier bills, the bank statement as a PDF, and invoices typed in a Word template. The accountant retypes it all, asks about lines nobody remembers, and the VAT figures arrive just before the deadline.
The sales were already in the till. Books, the accounting part of CreekPOS Online, takes the retyping out of the month.
What Books is
Double-entry accounting with a UAE chart of accounts, in the app you sell with: quotes and invoices, supplier bills and expenses, bank statements, the figures for your VAT return, and your profit. It is on the Online Restaurant and Chain plans. Switch it on in Settings → Features; switch it off and the till carries on as before.
You do not have to sell at the till to use it: invoices, bills, banking and reports work on their own.
Your till sales, posted for you
Each day's sales, returns, VAT and payment methods reach the ledger by themselves, in the background, every few minutes: one entry a day or one per receipt, your choice. Two rules keep the figures honest:
- A closed day is never rewritten. A sale made offline and synced later is added as a correction.
- A locked month stays locked. A change after that is a new entry, so last month's report still says what it said.
The till, the credit book and Books invoices share one balance per customer.
Quotes, invoices and bills
Turn a quote into an order, a delivery note and an invoice, in full or in parts; the customer can accept a quote online by typing their name. Record one payment against up to twelve invoices, issue a credit note against the original invoice and send statements. Documents come in three designs with your logo and colour, by e-mail or as a WhatsApp link you send yourself. Recurring invoices go out on a schedule.
Enter supplier bills, or create them from the goods you received, and see what is due this week. Books warns you when the same supplier invoice is entered twice, and keeps the paper as a private, encrypted PDF or photo. With AI invoice reading (in pilot), a bill can start from a photo.
Invoices and bills can be in 13 currencies at the rates you enter; bank accounts stay in AED.
Bank statements, matched
Books does not log in to your bank, so no bank password is stored. Instead:
- Download the statement from your bank as CSV, Excel, OFX or MT940.
- Import it. Lines imported twice are recognised, and an import can be undone.
- Books suggests the invoice, bill or transfer each line belongs to. You confirm each match.
- For lines that come every month, such as card terminal fees, set a bank rule once.
- Reconcile to the statement's closing balance.
A 13-week cash forecast shows what is coming in and going out.
VAT 201 figures, box by box
Set your VAT period, monthly or quarterly as the FTA assigned it, and the emirate of each branch. Books prepares the figures for the VAT 201 return: standard-rated supplies by emirate, zero-rated, exempt, reverse charge and recoverable input tax, with the transactions behind every box. When a box looks wrong, open it and see the sales or bills that made it.
Lines Books cannot classify by itself are marked for review: a till sale with no VAT, for example, could be zero-rated or exempt, and only you or your accountant can say which.
Books files nothing. You or your accountant file on the FTA's portal, then record the reference in Books, which settles the VAT and locks the months. Books does not amend a filed return, so plan any later correction with your accountant.
Your accountant and the month close
Invite your accountant with only the Books rights they need: view, sales, purchases, bank, journals and closing. Managers get no Books access until you give it. A month-end checklist (bank reconciled, suspense cleared, VAT reviewed, depreciation posted) and a year-end close keep things tidy; an optional second approval can be required above an amount you set.
Profit and loss, balance sheet, trial balance and general ledger cover 1 to 36 months, compared with the month before and last year, by branch and by cost centre, and export to Excel and CSV.
Getting started
- Settings → Features: switch Books on.
- Follow the set-up steps: business settings, your tax details, cash and bank accounts, opening balances and accountant access. Each step saves on its own.
- Ask your accountant to check the opening balances: Books suggests them, but they are suggestions.
- Import last month's bank statement and match it.
- Open the Books dashboard: cash and bank, profit, who owes you, what you owe, the VAT estimate, and a to-do list of invoices to send, bills due and bank lines to match.
What Books does not do
- It does not file your VAT return or work out corporate tax, and it is not tax advice.
- It does not connect to your bank: you import the statement file.
- Customers cannot pay an invoice by card online; the customer's page shows your bank details.
- Ask your accountant to confirm your invoice layout meets the tax-invoice rules for your business.
- It is not in the buy-once desktop program.
See what Books does, the Books chapter of the manual and the plans.
This article is general information as of its date, not legal or tax advice. Rules change; check the official source or ask your accountant before acting.
