Accounting software for Qatari SMEs: a buyer's checklist

Who reads your accounts

Start with the readers. Many companies in Qatar prepare annual financial statements for an auditor. Banks ask for accounts and receivables listings before renewing facilities. Partners want to know how each activity performs. Some businesses, depending on their ownership and activity, file income tax returns, and large multinational groups may fall under newer minimum-tax rules. Your adviser will tell you which apply to you. Each reader wants figures that trace back to documents, which is the first thing to test in any system.

The tax position, briefly

Qatar signed the GCC VAT framework agreement but has not implemented VAT at the time of writing, and announcements about future dates should be treated as unconfirmed until they appear in law. Excise tax applies to certain goods, and customs duty applies to imports. For your software, the rule is simple: no VAT on invoices today, and a tax setup that can be added later without disturbing the books.

Audit-ready records

• Does every journal open into the invoice, bill or payment behind it?
• Are corrections made with new entries, such as credit notes and reversing journals, rather than by editing posted documents?
• Is there an audit trail of who created, approved and changed each record?
• Can the month be closed and locked, with a second person signing it off?
• Can you produce a trial balance, profit and loss, balance sheet and cash-flow statement for any period, and export them?
• Are fixed assets kept in a register with depreciation?

Ask your auditor which schedules they want at year end, and check that the system produces each one without a spreadsheet in between: ledgers by account, receivables and payables listings, the stock listing and the fixed asset register.

Books in Qatari riyals

• Can the company's base currency be QAR, with every report in QAR?
• Can you invoice in US dollars, euros or another GCC currency, with the exchange rate saved on the invoice?
• How are foreign supplier bills recorded, and how are exchange differences handled when you pay?

Credit, cheques and collections

Business customers in Qatar commonly buy on credit, and post-dated cheques are still a common way to pay. Check for credit limits with an approval to exceed them, a register of post-dated cheques received and issued with presentation dates and bounces, customer statements that show which payment settled which invoice, and receivables ageing you can open to the invoices.

Projects, contracts and branches

Many Qatari SMEs work on contracts: maintenance agreements, fit-out jobs, supply contracts with scheduled deliveries. Ask how the system bills a contract by period, records job costs and shows the profit of a job. If you have more than one location, check that each branch keeps its own stock and staff within one ledger, and that the owner can see branches side by side.

Stock, if you hold it

• Stock by location, with transfers that are dispatched and received.
• Batches, expiry dates and serial numbers where your goods need them.
• Counts with reasons for every adjustment.
• Valuation at a consistent method, and stock as of a past date for year-end work.

Arabic, payroll and data

Check that staff can use the interface in Arabic and that documents print in the language your customers expect. If you run payroll in the same system, see how salaries post to the ledger and confirm local end-of-service and wage-payment requirements with your adviser rather than assuming the software covers them. Ask how you can export your data, where it is hosted and how it is backed up.

Run a trial that tells you something

1. Raise a credit invoice in QAR with no tax, and trace it to the ledger.
2. Receive a post-dated cheque, then record it bouncing.
3. Raise a credit note against the invoice and see both documents linked.
4. Close a month, then try to post into it.
5. Export the trial balance as your auditor would want it.

How NAQIX answers these questions

A NAQIX company set up for Qatar keeps its books in QAR and starts with no VAT rates; selecting the country does not switch VAT on, and taxes can be configured later only where they apply to your legal entity. Sales can be invoiced in other currencies with the rate saved on the invoice, while supplier bills are recorded in the base currency.

Journals open into their documents, credit notes are raised against the original invoice with a reason, manual journals can be voided and corrected with a full audit trail, and a month-end close signed off by a second person locks the month. Financial reports cover any date range, and there is an asset register with depreciation. Credit limits with approvals, a post-dated cheque register, customer statements and ageing reports cover collections, and service contracts can be billed one period at a time. The interface can be switched to Arabic.

NAQIX does not provide statutory filings for Qatar. The NAQIX page for Qatar describes the local setup, the Accounting & reports page lists the finance features, and the overview for Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain covers the wider product.