The GCC Technical
Accounting Playbook.
Twenty issues that decide whether your numbers survive an audit, a lender, or a buyer.
Most accounting failures in this region aren't fraud and aren't incompetence — they're the same twenty judgements, made once under time pressure, never revisited, and discovered by somebody else. This series sets out each issue at the depth a technical accounting partner would apply: the standard, the journal entry, the disclosure, and the control that stops it happening again.
Not a summary of IFRS. Not a compliance checklist.
Each of the twenty issues is worked through sixteen sections — from what the issue actually is, to a scope template you can put in front of your board. The worked examples carry figures. The journal entries balance. The paragraph references are specific enough to look up.
Five reasons someone opens this series.
CFOs & finance directors
Of mid-market groups who know an issue is sitting in the accounts and want to understand its size before someone else quantifies it.
Owners & boards of family businesses
Approaching a listing, a sale, or a generational transfer — where decisions made years ago determine what the business is worth today.
Private equity & investment teams
Running diligence on GCC targets, who need to know in advance where the adjustments usually turn up.
Audit committees & NEDs
Who need to ask better questions than the ones already sitting in the pack in front of them.
Finance teams building capability
In areas the region simply didn't need five years ago — deferred tax, transfer pricing, actuarial valuation, lease registers.
Four ways in, depending on why you're here.
Go straight to that chapter. The step-by-step treatment and journal entries show you what the correct position looks like — and the audit observations section tells you what your auditor is about to raise.
Read the Business Consequences and Prevention sections across all twenty. Buyers and reporting accountants work through substantially this list — every issue you've already quantified is one you're not defending under time pressure.
The Prevention section of each chapter is a control specification. Together they describe what a well-run GCC finance function actually maintains — a related party register, a CGU map, a lease register with an owner, a quarterly VAT reconciliation.
The Common Management Mistakes section is the shortest useful summary in the series — a list of things that are routinely believed, and are not true.
Five clusters. Each published as a standalone volume.
Revenue and Receivables
The top line, and whether it's real. Long-term contracts, off-plan property, gross vs net presentation, and expected credit losses.
Group Structure and Ownership
The shape of the group itself. Related parties and transfer pricing, pre-listing reorganisations, who actually consolidates, and what was really acquired.
| # | Issue | What it covers | IFRS standards |
|---|---|---|---|
| 05 | Related parties & owner accounts | IAS 24 completeness, the arm's length assertion, shareholder funding as debt or equity, below-market loans, transfer pricing collision | IAS 24, IFRS 9, IAS 32, IAS 12, IFRS 12, IFRS 7 |
| 06 | Business combinations under common control | Pre-IPO and pre-sale reorganisations, predecessor vs acquisition method, comparatives and track record, policy harmonisation | IFRS 3, IAS 8, IFRS 10, IAS 1, IAS 12 |
| 07 | Control, nominee & SPV structures | Consolidation scope, local sponsor and nominee arrangements, de facto control, joint operations vs joint ventures, structured entities | IFRS 10, IFRS 11, IFRS 12, IAS 28, IAS 24 |
| 08 | Purchase price allocation | Identifying and valuing acquired intangibles, consideration vs remuneration, contingent consideration, measurement period, deferred tax on uplifts | IFRS 3, IFRS 13, IAS 38, IAS 12, IAS 36 |
Assets
What it is, what it cost, what it's worth. Impairment and goodwill, property classification, inventory and NRV, and whether spending created an asset at all.
| # | Issue | What it covers | IFRS standards |
|---|---|---|---|
| 09 | Impairment & goodwill | Cash-generating units, goodwill allocation, value in use vs the business plan, pre-tax discount rate, terminal growth, sensitivity disclosure | IAS 36, IFRS 13, IAS 38, IAS 16, IFRS 16 |
| 10 | Property classification & fair value | Investment property vs PPE vs inventory, dual-use and ancillary services, transfers, the fair value model, valuer governance | IAS 40, IAS 16, IAS 2, IFRS 13, IFRS 5, IAS 12 |
| 11 | Inventory & net realisable value | Cost build including duty and freight, normal capacity overhead absorption, NRV item by item, ageing matrices, reversals | IAS 2, IAS 37, IAS 21, IAS 12 |
| 12 | Capitalise or expense | Cloud and licensed ERP, the six development conditions, pre-operating costs, borrowing costs and suspension, when capitalisation stops | IAS 38, IAS 16, IAS 23, IFRIC 1, IAS 36 |
Liabilities and Employee
What you owe, and what you promised. Leases, end-of-service benefits, provisions and contingencies, and equity granted to management.
| # | Issue | What it covers | IFRS standards |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13 | Leases | Lease term vs contractual term, annual renewable tenancies, incremental borrowing rate, musataha and long land leases, rent-free periods, turnover rent | IFRS 16, IAS 36, IAS 21, IAS 12 |
| 14 | End-of-service benefits | Projected unit credit vs the simple accrual, discount rate, attribution and vesting, remeasurements to OCI, new voluntary savings schemes | IAS 19, IAS 12, IFRS 13 |
| 15 | Provisions & contingencies | The three recognition conditions, constructive obligations, legal claims, restructuring provisions, reimbursements, restoration obligations | IAS 37, IAS 10, IFRIC 1, IAS 16, IFRS 3 |
| 16 | Share-based payment | Informal equity promises, equity vs cash-settled, vesting and market conditions, phantom schemes, founder transfers, modifications | IFRS 2, IFRS 13, IAS 12, IAS 33, IAS 32 |
Tax, Currency and Instruments
The regimes that arrived after the accounting was settled. Deferred tax and Pillar Two, VAT reconciliation, hyperinflation, and debt-or-equity classification.
| # | Issue | What it covers | IFRS standards |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17 | Income taxes & Pillar Two | The balance sheet walk for tax bases, deferred tax assets on losses, uncertain tax treatments, domestic minimum top-up tax, rate reconciliation | IAS 12, IFRIC 23, IAS 34, IAS 1 |
| 18 | VAT accounting & reconciliation | Return-to-ledger reconciliation, reverse charge, recovery conditions and apportionment, designated zones, bad debt relief, recognising an error | IAS 1, IAS 37, IFRS 15, IAS 8, IFRIC 21 |
| 19 | Currency & hyperinflation | Functional currency determination, monetary vs non-monetary, net investment in a foreign operation, IAS 29 restatement before translation | IAS 21, IAS 29, IFRIC 22, IFRS 7 |
| 20 | Shareholder loans, convertibles & Islamic instruments | Debt or equity, the fixed-for-fixed test, compound instruments and embedded derivatives, murabaha, ijara and sukuk, the 10% modification test | IAS 32, IFRS 9, IFRS 13, IFRS 7, IAS 1 |
Every chapter carries three real-world examples. Each one is labelled.
The distinction is visible on every page. Where no verifiable public case exists, we say so — rather than dressing a composite up as one.
Drawn from the public record
Published financial statements, auditors' reports, regulatory announcements, court filings and reported news — with sources named at the foot of the case. Nine of the twenty issues carry them.
Composites from engagement experience
Drawn from real engagement experience but never presented as named cases. The label appears in the text itself, not tucked into a footnote — so you always know which kind of example you're reading.
Most of these are cheaper to fix before somebody else finds them.
Every chapter ends with a scope template you can put in front of your board — and if you'd rather have the conversation first, we're happy to have it.