Billing periods for rent, retainers and recharges

In short

When an invoice line bills a period, such as a month of rent, a quarter of a retainer or a month of utility recharges, it must carry the period start and end dates as fields. Print the period you are billing on this invoice, not the contract year. Two kinds of periodic invoice also carry a flag: summary invoices and continuous supplies. Your accounts team fills the dates; Calculus staff set the flags in the mapping.

Why eInvoicing needs it

For contracts with periodic payments or consecutive invoices, the VAT Law sets the date of supply as the earliest of: the date a tax invoice is issued, the payment due date on the invoice, the date payment is received, or one year after the goods or services were provided (Article 26(1)). Each invoice is its own tax point. The billing period tells the Federal Tax Authority (FTA) and your buyer which slice of the contract this invoice covers. A month name in free text cannot be checked; two date fields can.

Summary invoice. A summary invoice puts several supplies to the same buyer on one tax invoice. The Executive Regulation allows it (Article 59(6)) and requires it within 14 days after the end of the calendar month in which the supplies fall (Article 59(13)). On the eInvoice, set the summary invoice flag (00010000) and give the invoicing period. The PINT AE format (the UAE eInvoice standard) makes the period mandatory when the flag is set. A summary invoice is a tax invoice only; it cannot be used on a commercial invoice out of scope of tax.

Continuous supply. A continuous supply is one provided on an ongoing or recurring basis with periodic invoicing: rent, subscriptions, monthly retainers, maintenance contracts (Ministry of Finance (MoF) Guidelines, section 10.4, scenario 5). Set the continuous supply flag (00001000) and the frequency of billing from this list:

Code	Frequency	Code	Frequency
DLY	Daily	Q45	Every 45 days
WKY	Weekly	Q60	Every 60 days
Q15	Every 15 days	QTR	Quarterly
MTH	Monthly	HYR	Half-yearly
YRL	Yearly	OTH	Other (explain in the invoice note)

Recharges, such as electricity or service charges passed on to a tenant for one month, carry the period too, even when no flag applies.

What good looks like

Al Noor Trading LLC rents a warehouse to Gulf Spice Imports FZE on a one-year lease from 15 March 2027, billed every quarter.

Field	Before	After
Description	"Warehouse rent 15/03/2027 - 14/03/2028 (1/4 rent)"	"Warehouse rent, first quarter"
Period start	None	2027-03-15
Period end	None	2027-06-14
Transaction flag	None	Continuous supply (00001000)
Frequency	None	QTR
VAT	5%	S, rate 5

Each line's period must fall within the invoice period. If the invoice also carries a one-off charge, that line simply has no period.

How to fix it in Tally

1. On each rent, retainer or recharge Sales voucher, keep the description short and name the period billed, not the contract term.
2. If your Sales voucher has fields for period from and period to, fill both. If it does not, ask your Tally partner to add two user-defined date fields on the voucher (or on each line) and include them in the export.
3. Keep rent and other recurring billing on its own voucher type, for example "Rent Invoice", so Calculus staff can set the continuous supply flag and frequency for that series.
4. For month-end summary invoices, use their own voucher type too, and raise them within 14 days after the month ends.

How to fix it in Excel or another system

Add two columns to each line: "Period start" and "Period end", as dates in YYYY-MM-DD format. Example: 2027-03-01 and 2027-03-31. For recurring series, add "Frequency" with a dropdown of the codes above. Example: MTH. ERP users: ask your ERP partner to send the service or billing period as structured dates on the invoice and its lines, instead of only in the line text.

Checklist

• Every line that bills a period carries start and end dates
• The dates are the period billed on this invoice, not the contract term
• Rent and subscription series are marked as continuous supplies with a frequency
• Summary invoices cover one buyer and one calendar month, issued within 14 days of month end
• Dates are true date fields in YYYY-MM-DD, not text

The law

• Federal Decree-Law No. 8 of 2017 on Value Added Tax (VAT Law), Article 26(1): date of supply for contracts with periodic payments or consecutive invoices. MoF PDF
• Executive Regulation of the VAT Law (Cabinet Decision No. 52 of 2017), Article 59(6): summary tax invoice for several supplies to the same person; Article 59(13): issued within 14 days after the end of the calendar month. MoF PDF
• MoF UAE Electronic Invoicing Guidelines, section 10.4, scenario 4 (summary invoice over a defined invoicing period) and scenario 5 (continuous supply), section 12.1 (sample invoice with billing period and frequency of billing). MoF PDF
• Peppol PINT AE: invoicing period IBG-14 (IBT-073, IBT-074) and line period IBG-26 (IBT-134, IBT-135); rule ibr-138-ae (period mandatory on summary invoices, transaction type BTAE-02); ibr-157-ae (no summary flag on 480 or 81); ibr-085 and ibr-086 (line period within invoice period); frequency of billing BTAE-06, rules ibr-005-ae and ibr-160-ae. PINT AE specification; code list: Frequency of billing