Mizarah or general accounting software for a contracting business.
General accounting software is good at what most businesses do: sell, invoice once and get paid. A contractor's sale is a contract billed over months: an advance, claims as the work is certified, and retention held for a year or more. This is where each one fits.
By Muhammad Arslan, founder of Mizarah, who kept a UAE joinery's books for thirteen years · 6 minute read · Updated 28 October 2026 · Practical guidance, not tax advice: confirm anything that matters for your business with your tax agent or the Federal Tax Authority.
General accounting software keeps the books well for a business that invoices once and gets paid, and many accountants know it. A contractor that bills in stages usually ends up keeping each contract in a spreadsheet beside it, because the advance left to recover, the retention held and the 100% limit belong to the contract, not to one invoice. Mizarah keeps the books and the contract together. If you sell from stock or bill each job once, with no advance and no retention, general software is the better fit.
General software is built for one sale and one invoice.
Most general accounting packages do the everyday books well: sales and purchase invoices, the bank, expenses, stock and the VAT return for a business whose invoices are paid in full. Many accountants already work in them, and that counts for something.
What they are not built around is the contract. An invoice there is one sale; it does not know it is the third claim on a 1,000,000 contract with 210,000 of the advance already recovered.
Job by job, for a contractor that bills in stages.
Packages differ, so test any system on a contract you have already billed. This is what contractors commonly find.
| Job | General accounting software | Mizarah |
|---|---|---|
| Quotation | A quote with price lines | Your priced BOQ sheet, imported as the quotation every claim is billed against |
| Advance received | Often a payment on account, with its tax invoice raised by hand | Recording the advance raises its tax invoice and declares its VAT that day |
| Progress claim | A plain invoice for an amount worked out in a spreadsheet | Built from the billed % on each contract line, with the advance and retention taken off |
| VAT method | VAT on whatever amount is typed | One method, before VAT or after VAT, applied to every deduction |
| Retention | A balance you track yourself, often in the spreadsheet | Held on its own account, contract by contract, until each release invoice |
| Billing past 100% | Not checked against the contract | Refused |
| Arabic tax invoice | Depends on the package | English, English and Arabic, or Arabic, chosen when you print |
| VAT 201 | Only as right as the amounts typed into the invoices | Laid out box by box from your posted documents |
The contract moves into a spreadsheet, and the two drift apart.
When the software cannot follow the contract, the claim is worked out in Excel and only the result is typed into the books. Now there are two records of the same contract, and nothing makes them agree.
That is where the usual mistakes start: the advance's VAT declared twice, retention held back on the claim but never invoiced back, and a VAT return that matches the invoices but not the contract.
- Every claim is typed twice: once in the sheet, once as an invoice.
- The sheet knows the contract; the books know only the invoices.
- At the year end someone reconciles the two by hand.
When general software is the better choice.
If most of your sales are invoiced once and paid in full, from stock or one invoice per job with no advance and nothing held back, general accounting software does what you need. A contract system would add steps you do not use.
- You sell from stock or bill each job once.
- You take no advance and no retention is held from you.
- Your accountant runs the books and you rarely open them.
Mizarah keeps the books and the contract in one place.
Mizarah is job accounting software for UAE contractors that bill in stages: joinery, fit-out, aluminium and glass, steel, MEP, gypsum, furniture, marble, signage and painting. The quotation, the advance, the claims, the retention, the job's purchases and the VAT return sit on the same records, so there is nothing to reconcile.
It costs $49 a month or $399 a year for one company with ten staff logins, runs in the browser, and has a 14-day free trial with no card.
In Mizarah the contract refuses a claim past 100%, the advance comes off under your company's VAT method until the advances account is zero, retention sits on its own account until each release, and the VAT 201 is laid out from the same posted documents.
Common questions.
- Can I use general accounting software for progress billing?
- You can raise the invoices in it, but the contract itself (the advance left to recover, the retention held and how much of the contract is billed) usually has to be kept in a spreadsheet beside it. Software built for stage billing keeps those on the contract.
- Is Mizarah a full accounting system?
- Yes. Every document posts to the ledger, and it keeps the bank, payroll and the VAT return as well as the contracts, so you do not need a second package for the books.
- Can my accountant work in it?
- Yes. Give them their own login with the Accountant role. It uses one of your ten staff seats.
- We already use general accounting software. Do we have to re-enter everything?
- No. Contracts already part-billed start from where they stand today, not from every old claim. Choose a date with your accountant to move the books, for example the start of a VAT period.
- How much does Mizarah cost?
- $49 a month or $399 a year for one company, with ten staff logins included, after a 14-day free trial that needs no card.
Read next: Choosing software for a UAE contractor · Bill it yourself or pay an accountant · Pricing
See your own contract worked out this way.
Put a contract you have already billed through the trial and check the figures against what you invoiced. No card needed, and nothing you enter is deleted when the trial ends.