Mizarah or Excel for your progress bills.
Excel is free, flexible and already open on most contractors' computers, and a careful sheet can bill a contract correctly. The real question is how long it stays correct with five contracts running, two people changing it and last year's retention still to invoice.
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.
Excel is enough for one or two contracts billed by one careful person: it is free and you already know it. Mizarah is the better choice once several contracts run together or more than one person bills, because it keeps the advance, every claim, the retention and the VAT on the contract itself. It raises the advance tax invoice, applies one VAT method to every deduction, refuses a claim past 100%, tracks retention to its release and lays out the VAT 201, for $49 a month after a 14-day free trial.
What each one does on a contract that bills in stages.
Both can produce a correct progress bill. The difference is who does the checking: in Excel it is you, on every claim; in Mizarah the contract checks itself.
| Job | In Excel | In Mizarah |
|---|---|---|
| Advance received | A separate invoice you have to remember, its VAT worked out by hand | Recording the advance raises its tax invoice and declares its VAT that day |
| Each claim | Last month's sheet copied, with every formula moved to the new columns | The billed % on each contract line; the advance and retention come off by themselves |
| VAT method | Whatever the formulas do, which can mix the two methods | One company setting, before VAT or after VAT, applied to every deduction |
| Billing past 100% | Nothing stops it | The claim is refused |
| Retention | A column nobody opens after handover | Held on its own account, contract by contract, until each release invoice |
| Tax invoice | Your own layout, in the language you typed it in | English, English and Arabic, or Arabic, chosen when you print |
| VAT return | Rebuilt by hand from the sheets each period | Laid out box by box from your posted documents |
| Several people | One copy is the right one and the others drift | Everyone works on the same contract, each with their own login |
| Cost | Free, plus your time on every claim | $49 a month or $399 a year, with ten staff logins |
Excel is enough when the work is small and one person owns the sheet.
If you bill one or two contracts at a time, the same person builds every claim, and no retention is waiting from earlier years, a well-built sheet can get every figure right. It costs nothing and you can shape it the way you like.
The free progress bill calculator and Excel template on this site follow the same VAT rules as Mizarah, so you can start there.
- One or two contracts at a time.
- One person builds and checks every claim.
- No retention from past years still to invoice.
- Your VAT return comes together without rebuilding the sheets.
The signs a sheet has started to disagree with itself.
A sheet copied forward each month usually holds until the third or fourth claim. Then a formula still points at last month, the advance comes off twice, or a retention release is never invoiced because nobody opened that file again.
- Your claim and the main contractor's certificate disagree, and it takes an hour to find why.
- The VAT on your return does not match the VAT on your claims.
- Nobody can say at once how much retention is held, on which contract, and when it is due.
- Two people have different versions of the same claim.
Claim 2 on the 1,000,000 reference contract.
The contract has a 30% advance and 10% retention, taken off before VAT. Claim 1 billed 300,000 and claim 2 bills 400,000 more. The figures are the same whichever way you bill it; what changes is how many of them you type and check.
| Line | Amount | In Mizarah |
|---|---|---|
| This claim | 400,000.00 | From the certificate: the billed % on each contract line |
| Less advance (30%) | −120,000.00 | Worked out; 90,000 left to recover |
| Less retention (10%) | −40,000.00 | Worked out; 70,000 held to date |
| Taxable amount | 240,000.00 | Worked out |
| VAT (5%) | 12,000.00 | Worked out, rounded on each line |
| Payable | 252,000.00 | 70% of the contract billed, 30% left |
In Excel every one of these lines is a formula you wrote and copied from last month's sheet. The three checks in the Excel guide catch most slips.
You do not re-enter the claims you already sent.
A contract part-billed in Excel starts in Mizarah from where it stands today: the work billed to date, the claims already issued, the advance received and recovered, and the retention held, under the method your old claims used. The next claim carries on from there.
The quickest test is a contract you have already billed: put it through during the 14-day free trial (no card needed) and compare every figure with what you sent.
In Mizarah the starting position is "Billed before Mizarah" on the project, and a priced Excel or CSV sheet can be imported as a quotation, with its columns matched to the quotation's lines.
Common questions.
- Is Excel good enough for progress billing in the UAE?
- For one or two contracts billed by one person, yes, if every deduction follows one VAT method and you keep running totals for the advance and the retention. With several contracts or several people the copies start to disagree, and software built for stage billing does the checks for you.
- How much does Mizarah cost compared with Excel?
- Excel you already have. Mizarah is $49 a month or $399 a year for one company with ten staff logins, after a 14-day free trial that needs no card.
- Can I move a contract I started in Excel?
- Yes. Bring its starting position (work billed to date, the advance received and recovered, the retention held and the method the old claims used) and the next claim carries on from there.
- Do I need to install anything?
- No. Mizarah is cloud only and runs in the browser on a computer or a phone.
- Is there a free Excel template?
- Yes. The progress bill calculator on mizarah.com works out a claim with an advance, retention and VAT by either method, and has an Excel template that follows the same rules.
Read next: Progress bills in Excel: where they go wrong · Mizarah vs general accounting software · Progress bill calculator
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.