ERP for tech / saas. Subscriptions, SLAs and revenue recognition on the same ledger.
A product company ships or it does not. Kinnow runs the roadmap, the customer contract, the support desk and the ledger as one record, so a release, a renewal and a deferred-revenue balance can be traced to each other. This edition covers UAE VAT first, with Saudi VAT alongside.
From December 2026How will Kinnow help a software product company in the UAE or Saudi Arabia? The ready-made industry setup (we call it an industry pack) is Tech Product Development. It runs the backlog, sprints and releases with test evidence required before a release ships, customer agreements as service contracts with renewal alerts, tickets on service-promise (SLA) plans that can escalate into the backlog, and revenue recognition from the contract. The UAE and Saudi editions arrive from December 2026; nothing on this page is live in the region today, and nothing is billed, filed or paid without a person.
Your company, in one paragraph.
You build once and sell many times. Money comes from customer agreements, annual or monthly, and from services around them, often invoiced in AED to customers across the emirates and, increasingly, in Riyadh. Costs are engineers and the cloud bill, which is usually bought from abroad. Deferred revenue is reconciled by hand between the billing tool and the books, a support breach surfaces in an escalation instead of a dashboard, and the board pack takes a week of exports from five systems.
The regional layer adds a tax invoice that carries your TRN (tax registration number), a quarterly VAT return, and reverse charge (you account for the VAT yourself) on foreign cloud and software spend. Three things keep the founder awake: a renewal that lapsed without anyone deciding it, work started and never released, and a customer who raised the same issue four times before anyone saw the pattern.
How your month runs on Kinnow
The industry setup gives you three step-by-step routines that matter here: Trial to renewal, Idea to release and Campaign to trial. Limits are starting figures you set, in AED.
| Step | Who | What Kinnow does | Where a person approves |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Campaign to trial | Growth lead | A campaign needs a named audience and is approved before it goes live; sign-ups are contacted within 48 hours. Campaigns, lead sources and the funnel by stage are reported. Marketing sends need recorded consent. | Campaigns above your set budget need approval. |
| 2. Trial to customer agreement | Sales lead | The pipeline takes a trial through activation, plan quoted, negotiation and won. A won deal becomes a service contract with value, billing cycle and end date. | Large deals raise a warning. |
| 3. Invoice and collect | Finance | Invoices are raised in Sales on the cycle you choose, as UAE tax invoices with your TRN and VAT at 5%. The customer sees and can dispute them in the customer portal. | An invoice above your set value needs approval (UAE starting figure AED 500,000). |
| 4. Plan and build | Product owner | Ideas enter the backlog as epics, stories and tasks with estimates and a requirement reference, are committed to a sprint and a release, and tracked on a board. | A build above your set value needs the product owner. |
| 5. Test and ship | Engineering lead | A fix cannot be marked resolved without a test report. A release can be cut over a known gap only with a sign-off, with a named person accountable. | Release sign-off by the role you name. |
| 6. Support | Support lead | Tickets run on SLA plans with response and resolution due times; one outside a plan is blocked. A ticket can be escalated into the backlog, which parks it until the fix lands. | The customer confirms before closure. |
| 7. Renew | Customer success | Renewal alerts go out at 60, 30 and 7 days before a contract ends. A churn score flags accounts at critical risk. | Renewal is a step-up approval. |
| 8. Recognise revenue | Controller | A contract is split into performance obligations, a waterfall is built under IFRS 15, and a monthly run posts the recognition journal and the deferred balance. | A manager activates each contract. |
| 9. Close and file | Finance head | Month-end checks run before the books close. The groundwork to draft the quarterly VAT return for review is completed before launch, and your team uploads it. | Books closed and the return approved by people. |
Bring one release and one renewal; we will trace each from the backlog and the contract to the ledger.
What "subscription" means in Kinnow
The page title says subscriptions, so here is exactly what that covers.
A customer agreement is a service contract: value, billing cycle (annual, quarterly or monthly), start and end dates and a renewal alert. Your team raises the invoices through Sales, and the revenue schedule recognises the contract ratably or by milestone.
Built
Service contracts with renewal alerts, invoices on any cycle, the customer portal, revenue contracts with performance obligations and a deferred balance.
Not built
A plan catalogue, usage metering, automatic recurring invoice runs, and MRR, ARR or cohort churn dashboards. Do not buy Kinnow expecting a billing engine; expect a ledger that knows your contracts.
The ready-made setup for a software company, and the UAE rules
Two sets of limits apply. The industry setup shapes the build, the support desk and campaigns; the UAE country setup shapes tax, payroll and journals. Figures are starting points in AED.
| Limit | Starting figure | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Issue resolved without a test report (industry setup) | Always | Blocked |
| Release without full test evidence (industry setup) | Always | Needs release sign-off |
| Campaign without an audience (industry setup) | Always | Blocked |
| Ticket outside an SLA plan (industry setup) | Always | Blocked |
| Build commitment, campaign budget, credit limit, open deal (industry setup) | Set with you in AED | Approval or warning |
| VAT return, net payable (UAE country setup) | Over AED 1,000,000 | Approval |
| Tax invoice value (UAE country setup) | Over AED 500,000 | Approval |
| Manual journal (UAE country setup) | Over AED 500,000 | Approval |
| Purchase order, including foreign suppliers under reverse charge (UAE country setup) | Over AED 500,000 | Approval |
Seventeen processes come on with five sign-off routes (who approves, in what order): build, campaign budget, journal, credit limit and release sign-off. Eleven Ask Kinnow starters and nine reports come with the industry setup, among them the project register, milestone status, ticket register, campaign register, funnel by stage, lead source performance and requirement traceability. The UAE country setup adds a VAT sales register, a purchase register and a rate summary.
Agents for a software product company
SLA Alert
Flags a ticket at risk of breaching from its response and resolution due times against now.
Churn Sentinel
Scores active customers nightly on a health score and flags the ones at critical risk.
Contract Renewal Watch
Sweeps contracts nearing their end date so a renewal conversation is scheduled before one lapses.
Project Risk
Scores schedule slip and billing burn from milestones.
Campaign Strategist
Designed to draft a campaign brief from your goal and your own data, such as gaps in your sales pipeline, customers who have gone quiet and the time of year.
Sell + AccountCollections
Drafts overdue reminders and steps them up according to how many days a payment is actually late. A person approves each reminder before it goes out.
AccountAI Invoice Extractor
Reads the text of a supplier invoice and fills in the bill for you, checking that the amounts add up before anything is saved.
ComplyFiling Prep
Builds the sales-tax return file from your books and lists every document it left out, with the reason, for a person to clear before filing.
A weekly Executive Digest summarises the business for the founder. Every agent is validated with each client before it works on their books, and every output waits for a person.
Ask us which two agents would pay back first in a company your size.
Tax and payroll calendar for the UAE and Saudi Arabia
Kinnow prepares and exports; your team uploads to the authority's portal. Dates are set by the Federal Tax Authority and the labour authority, so your finance lead confirms them for your period.
| Obligation | Where | What Kinnow prepares |
|---|---|---|
| VAT return (VAT-201) | UAE, quarterly | The groundwork for a draft return from the sales and purchase books, sales split by emirate, with data-quality warnings, completed before launch. The layout is checked with a UAE tax adviser before the first filing. |
| Reverse charge on imported services | UAE | Output and input sides of reverse charge, for cloud, hosting and software bought from abroad, on the same return. |
| Tax invoice | UAE | Invoice templates in English and Arabic, checked for mandatory fields such as your TRN before they are issued. |
| Wages through WPS (the wage-protection salary file) | UAE, monthly | The salary file for the bank, from an approved payroll run. Expatriate end-of-service is accrued; pension contributions apply to UAE and GCC nationals. |
| VAT return | Saudi Arabia | VAT at 15% and a draft return structure for review. Filing is by your team on the authority's portal. |
Corporate Tax: the compliance engine can compute the 9% charge above AED 375,000 from the taxable income your accountant supplies; it is a computation, not a return. A Corporate Tax return is not in the first release.
What the founder sees
| Ask Kinnow | Answer built from |
|---|---|
| Which releases have slipped their dates? | Project milestone status |
| What are customers raising most often? | Ticket register |
| Where is the funnel losing people? | Funnel by stage |
| Which backlog items cite no requirement? | Requirement traceability |
| Show me churn risk by account | Customer health scores |
| What is my net VAT position this quarter? | UAE VAT sales register |
Each answer shows its source and cost before it runs. Veil, our privacy layer, holds back bank, tax and ID numbers and swaps names for placeholders before an AI call. It covers Ask Kinnow and most agents today; the rest are being added.
See your own renewals, tickets and deferred revenue in one place, with your contracts loaded.
Questions
Can Kinnow run our subscription billing?
Not as a billing engine. A customer agreement is a service contract with a billing cycle, end date and renewal alerts, and invoices are raised through Sales. Plans, metering and MRR dashboards are not built.
Can it recognise subscription revenue?
Yes. A revenue contract is split into performance obligations, a waterfall is built under IFRS 15, and a monthly run posts the recognition journal and the deferred balance. A manager activates each contract.
Can we collect card payments from customers?
Not in the first release. Payment gateway slots for the region are placeholders, so customers keep paying through your current provider or by bank transfer.
Can it replace our issue tracker?
For light use. Epics, stories, sprints, releases and components are there, with test evidence required before a fix is resolved. Source code and CI/CD stay in your DevOps stack.
Does it handle Saudi Arabia as well as the UAE?
Saudi Arabia arrives from December 2026 with VAT first. ZATCA e-invoicing is planned after launch, and Saudi payroll is not part of the first release.
How are SLA breaches handled?
Each ticket sits on an SLA plan with response and resolution due times. The industry setup blocks a ticket outside a plan, and an alert flags tickets near breach.
How long does set-up take?
About two weeks to first results for one company: masters, contracts and opening balances in the first week, agents switched on and a first close in the second.
Show me Kinnow for tech / saas.
Answer three questions. Get the applications, the agents and a two-week plan for your business.