For CFOs in the UAE managing holding groups, family offices, or multi-brand companies, financial control isn't just about accuracy ; it’s about coordination across complexity.
Operating across multiple trade licenses, Freezone and Mainland entities, and decentralized teams introduces a real challenge: how do you manage group-wide spend with precision, while maintaining autonomy at the entity level and ensuring audit-readiness?
Spreadsheets and emails aren’t built for this. Traditional banks aren’t either.
This guide breaks down how to build a centralized expense control system that still empowers individual subsidiaries, keeps intercompany records clean, and prepares your group for audits and tax filings ; all while minimizing time spent reconciling data from different portals, cards, and spreadsheets.
Let’s unpack the challenges and the solution.
The Challenge of the "Holding Group" Structure
Most CFOs in the UAE don’t oversee a single company. They oversee multiple trade licenses ; often across:
- Mainland and Freezone jurisdictions
- Different business verticals
- Diverse team structures and P&Ls
Each entity operates under its own license, with its own:
- Bank account(s)
- Accounting ledgers
- TRN (Tax Registration Number)
- Local team or management layer
Yet from a Group finance perspective, you’re expected to deliver:
- Consolidated reports
- Intercompany reconciliations
- Clean audit trails
- VAT filing accuracy for each entity
Real-world complexity:
Let’s say you run a holding group with:
- A Freezone digital marketing agency (Entity A)
- A Mainland real estate investment arm (Entity B)
- A tech startup with funding (Entity C)
Each entity:
- Spends differently
- Has different tax treatments
- Uses different systems (or none at all)
Yet the same core finance team needs to track it all, manage risk, and ensure group-wide financial clarity.
Centralized Control vs. Decentralized Spending
The #1 tension for group CFOs is this:
How do you keep centralized control, while allowing entities to move fast and spend independently?
You need:
- Entity GMs to make quick purchases
- Department heads to manage their own budgets
- Field teams to spend on operational needs (without bottlenecks)
But you also need:
- Oversight on who spent what
- Real-time budget tracking
- Clean books with no cross-entity confusion
This is where most setups fail.
Common failure points:
Legacy Method
Problem
Shared parent company card
Leads to misallocated spend and messy intercompany charges
Manual reimbursement requests
Creates delays, audit risk, and lost VAT opportunities
Bank transfers between entities
Hard to track, prone to duplication and confusion
Logging in/out of 5+ bank portals
Time-consuming and insecure
The solution isn’t just policy ; it’s infrastructure. And that starts with card-based, rule-driven spend control for each entity.
How Virtual Cards solve Inter-Company messes
The best way to assign, track, and control spending per entity is through smart virtual cards ; not bank transfers or manual tracking.
With Pemo, you can issue entity-specific cards, linked directly to:
- A department or cost center
- A specific team or manager
- A unique budget and approval workflow
The benefits:
1. Stop the "Paid by Parent Company" issue
When all spend flows through the parent entity’s bank account:
- GL coding becomes manual
- Recharges are often forgotten
- Auditors raise red flags
- You risk violating tax or license compliance
With Pemo, each card is tied to a specific legal entity. Spend never has to be “guessed” after the fact ; it’s properly routed in real time.
2. Issue cards instantly for specific needs
Examples:
- A marketing team in Entity A needs AED 3,000 for a campaign ; issue a prepaid card, loaded and approved instantly.
- A procurement lead in Entity B needs to pay a supplier ; assign a card with category restrictions.
- A software renewal for Entity C? Create a subscription-specific card so it's isolated and tracked.
No one touches the wrong account. No need for reimbursement or back-allocation.
3. Intercompany transparency without friction
You no longer have to request "who paid for this?" across entities.
- Every spend has metadata: user, entity, purpose, category, VAT
- Every transaction is recorded, receipted, and tagged automatically
Consolidating the Tech Stack
Your time should be spent analyzing numbers; not switching between platforms.
Yet most CFOs still juggle:
- 5–10 bank portals
- Separate accounting platforms or setups
- Multiple Excel files and folders for reconciliation
With Pemo, you consolidate your entire expense operations into one interface, built for multi-entity management.
Here’s how:
1. Single dashboard for all entities
You can view:
- Total group-wide spending
- Spend breakdown per entity
- Category-level budgets
- Cash burn by brand, department, or team
All without switching logins or systems.
2. Role-based access
Each team member sees only what they need:
- Entity GMs see their team’s cards
- Finance leads access all data
- Auditors get entity-specific exports
No over-permissioned staff. No risky bank logins. Just clean, role-based visibility.
3. Integrations that scale
Pemo syncs with:
- Xero
- QuickBooks
- Wafeq
- Local ERPs
Each entity can connect to its own accounting system; while you manage spend centrally.
No duplicate data entry. No manual coding.
Streamlining Audit & Tax for Groups
For multi-entity CFOs, tax and audit season is when weak systems get exposed.
Each entity requires:
- Accurate VAT returns (per TRN)
- Clear trail of who spent what
- Documentation (receipts, approvals)
- Segregated audit logs
If you're managing this via email threads and bank PDFs, you're burning time and introducing risk.
With Pemo, you get:
1. Per-entity VAT compliance
Each card transaction includes:
- VAT amount
- Tax invoice attachment
- Linked TRN
This ensures:
- Clean records for each entity
- No cross-TRN contamination
- No missed reclaim opportunities
2. Real-time audit readiness
- All receipts uploaded at point of spend
- No “month-end chasing”
- Every entry matched and categorized
You don’t prepare for audit season ; you’re already ready.
3. Downloadable audit packages
Export per entity:
- Transaction logs
- VAT records
- Approval flows
- Budget vs actuals
Auditors get everything. Your team stays focused.
Bonus: Building Internal Controls Without Slowing Teams Down
Control ≠ bureaucracy.
With Pemo, you can build approval workflows per entity, such as:
- Auto-approve spends < AED 500
- Require GM sign-off for spends > AED 5,000
- Block spend with high-risk vendors or categories
This ensures compliance without slowing teams down. Everyone knows the rules ; and the system enforces them.
Case Study Snapshot: A UAE-Based Holding Group
Group Overview:
- 6 entities: across education, tech, and F&B
- Mixed Mainland and Freezone licenses
- Centralized finance team with satellite ops managers
Old setup:
- 1 shared debit card per entity
- WhatsApp for expense requests
- Manual receipt uploads to Google Drive
- Bank statements exported monthly and reconciled in Excel
Results:
- Lost receipts = VAT leakage
- Missed approvals = overspending
- Confusion over intercompany charges
- 10+ hours/week on reconciliation
New setup with Pemo:
- Each entity has dedicated cards (virtual and physical)
- Category controls in place
- All spend auto-synced with Quickbooks
- Real-time dashboard for Group CFO
Outcome:
- 95% reduction in receipt loss
- 3x faster monthly close
- Clean VAT reclaim per TRN
- CFO can generate real-time spend reports by brand or entity
Conclusion: Build an Expense System that matches your Group’s Complexity
The more entities you manage, the higher the risk of financial fragmentation. And the more fragmented your systems, the harder it is to scale, comply, and operate with confidence.
But with the right infrastructure; built for multi-entity expense management; you can:
✅ Empower entity managers without losing control
✅ Track spend by entity, category, and user; in real time
✅ Maintain VAT and audit readiness
✅ Consolidate systems and save your finance team hours per week
Pemo was built for UAE CFOs managing across complexity. If you're running more than one trade license, it’s time to upgrade from manual oversight to automated multi-entity control.
