Built around subscription businesses.
FoundrBooks is an ACA-qualified practice working with subscription software businesses across Ireland and the UK — from pre-revenue startups filing their first set of accounts to companies running seven figures of recurring revenue across multiple currencies and jurisdictions.
A subscription business breaks the assumptions most bookkeeping is built on. Cash arrives before the service is delivered. A single annual invoice becomes twelve months of revenue. Upgrades, downgrades, refunds and churn all move the numbers mid-period. Get this wrong and you don't just misreport profit — you overstate revenue, overpay tax, and hand a due-diligence problem to whoever eventually looks at your books.
Where SaaS accounting differs.
Deferred revenue
When a customer pays €1,200 up front for an annual plan, you have not earned €1,200. You have earned roughly €100 and taken on a €1,100 liability to deliver eleven more months of service. That liability sits on your balance sheet and unwinds monthly. Booking the full amount as revenue on day one inflates your profit and loss account, creates a corporation tax charge that shouldn't exist yet, and produces a revenue line no investor will trust.
Revenue recognition
Under IFRS 15 and FRS 102, revenue is recognised as the performance obligation is satisfied — not when the cash lands. For most SaaS that means straight-line recognition across the subscription term. It gets more involved when a contract bundles implementation fees, onboarding, support tiers or usage-based charges, because each may need to be identified and recognised separately.
ARR is not recognised revenue
Contracted ARR annualises your recurring revenue at a point in time. Recognised revenue reflects the service you actually delivered in the period. They measure different things and they will never match. Both are legitimate numbers — reporting one while calling it the other is where founders get into trouble.
Multi-currency
Selling in dollars from a euro-functional company means FX gains and losses running through your accounts every month, plus Stripe or Paddle settling in a third currency with fees netted off before the money reaches you. Gross revenue and net receipts diverge immediately, and only one of them belongs on your revenue line.
What we handle.
- ✓Monthly bookkeeping built for subscription revenue — deferred revenue schedules maintained properly, not reconstructed at year end
- ✓Revenue recognition policy documented and applied consistently under IFRS 15 / FRS 102
- ✓Payment processor reconciliation — Stripe, Paddle, GoCardless, Chargebee — including fees, refunds, chargebacks and payout timing
- ✓SaaS metrics reporting — MRR, ARR, net revenue retention, gross margin, CAC payback and runway
- ✓Statutory accounts and corporation tax — Revenue and the CRO in Ireland, HMRC and Companies House in the UK
- ✓R&D tax credit claims, including the technical narrative that supports them
- ✓VAT registration and filing, including cross-border digital services and the One Stop Shop
- ✓Payroll and share option reporting as you build out a team
- ✓Board and investor reporting packs that stand up in a due-diligence process
Product development is usually your biggest claim.
Development is often the single largest expense on a SaaS profit and loss account, and a meaningful share of it typically qualifies for R&D relief. For most clients this is the highest-value work we do.
Ireland
Ireland's R&D Corporation Tax Credit is 35% of qualifying expenditure, increased from 30% in Budget 2026. The first-year payment threshold also rose, from €75,000 to €87,500. The credit is refundable — it can be paid out in cash over three annual instalments even if your company is loss-making and pays no corporation tax, which matters a great deal pre-revenue.
United Kingdom
The UK operates a merged R&D expenditure credit at 20% for accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2024. Loss-making, R&D-intensive SMEs may instead qualify for Enhanced R&D Intensive Support, giving an additional 86% deduction on qualifying costs and a payable credit worth up to 14.5% of the surrenderable loss. To count as R&D-intensive, at least 30% of total expenditure must be qualifying R&D — a bar many early-stage software companies clear comfortably.
The part that catches software companies out.
Software sold over the internet is an electronically supplied service, and the VAT treatment depends on who is buying and where they are.
Selling B2B
The general business-to-business place-of-supply rule applies: VAT is accounted for by your customer under the reverse charge, provided you hold a valid VAT number for them and can evidence it.
Selling B2C across borders
The place of supply is wherever your customer lives, so VAT is due at theircountry's rate. Rather than registering in every member state, you register once for the One Stop Shop (OSS) and file a single return.
The €10,000 threshold
If you're established in one member state and your cross-border B2C supplies of telecoms, broadcasting and electronic services stay under €10,000 in both the current and preceding calendar year, you can simply charge your domestic rate. Once you cross it, the general rules apply to all supplies from that point on. Self-serve products cross this line without anyone noticing.
Two regimes at once
Post-Brexit, a company selling into both the UK and the EU is dealing with two separate VAT systems simultaneously. Setting this up correctly at the start is considerably cheaper than unwinding it later.
Transparent monthly pricing.
No hourly billing and no surprise invoices. Most SaaS companies start on Growth.
All prices in EUR. Secure payment via Stripe. Cancel anytime with no fees.
SaaS accounting questions.
Do you work with pre-revenue SaaS companies?
Yes, and it is usually the best time to start. Setting up your chart of accounts and revenue recognition policy correctly from the beginning costs far less than reconstructing two years of books before a funding round.
We use Stripe. Can you work from that directly?
Yes. We reconcile Stripe, Paddle, GoCardless and Chargebee data directly, including processor fees, refunds, chargebacks and payout timing differences.
What is deferred revenue in a SaaS business?
When a customer pays for an annual subscription up front, you have not yet earned that money. The unearned portion is a liability on your balance sheet called deferred revenue, and it is released to the profit and loss account month by month as you deliver the service.
Why doesn't our ARR match the revenue in our accounts?
They measure different things and they will not match. ARR annualises your current contracted recurring revenue at a point in time, while recognised revenue reflects the service actually delivered in the period under IFRS 15 or FRS 102. Both are valid metrics; the mistake is presenting one as the other.
Can a SaaS company claim R&D tax credits?
Often yes, where development work resolves genuine technical uncertainty rather than applying established techniques. Ireland's R&D tax credit is 35% of qualifying expenditure following Budget 2026. In the UK the merged R&D expenditure credit is 20%, with Enhanced R&D Intensive Support available to loss-making SMEs whose qualifying R&D is at least 30% of total expenditure.
When do we need to worry about VAT on cross-border SaaS sales?
For B2B sales within the EU and to the UK, the customer generally accounts for VAT under the reverse charge. For B2C sales, VAT is due at the customer's local rate, though a business established in one member state can charge its domestic rate while cross-border B2C supplies of digital services stay under €10,000 per year. Above that, the One Stop Shop lets you file a single return instead of registering in each country.
Keep reading.
Talk to an accountant who knows SaaS.
Chartered accountant, working with software companies across Ireland and the UK.
Rates and thresholds stated on this page were correct as of August 2026 and are drawn from Revenue and HMRC guidance. Tax legislation changes; this page is general information, not advice for your specific circumstances.