Lesson 8 — The liability report, and the two groups it will not add up
The report exists to be shown to somebody else. That shapes every decision in it.
Where it is and what it does. Go to Employees → End-of-Service Liability and pick an as-at date. The report lists every employee carrying a posted provision, grouped by department, and shows three figures at the top.
| Figure | What it is |
|---|---|
| Provision register | What the HR side believes is owed — the sum of the latest posted provision per employee |
| Ledger balance | What the accounts say — the balance on the EOSB liability account |
| Difference | The two subtracted, and it should be zero |
Both numbers are shown on purpose. They are produced by different machinery, so when they disagree something has happened outside the engine: a manual journal against the liability account, a settlement paid without releasing the provision, a reversed entry, or the account being used for a second purpose. A report that showed one number would hide exactly the discrepancy an auditor opens it to find. When they disagree, a red banner says so. And if no liability account is configured, the ledger column says that rather than showing zero, because "not configured" and "the balance is zero" are different facts.
The worked example. Our company at 31 August 2026, after the run in Lesson 4.
| Figure | As at 31 August 2026 |
|---|---|
| Provision register | AED 317,900 |
| Ledger balance on the EOSB liability account | AED 305,900 |
| Difference | AED 12,000 |
A red banner appears, and AED 12,000 is now a question with a finite list of answers. In this case someone posted a manual journal against the liability account to clear what they thought was an old balance. That is a two-minute investigation today. Left for a year, it is an audit finding, and the person who has to explain it will not be the person who posted it.
Two groups appear as their own sections below the table, and are never added into the register total.
- On a funded scheme — employees under DIFC DEWS or the alternative savings scheme. Their benefit sits in a fund, not in this liability, so adding them would double-count an obligation the company discharges by subscription.
- Service could not be measured — no contract start date on record, so continuous service cannot be established. Treating them as zero would understate the liability silently, so they are named instead. This is where the second data problem from Lesson 6 surfaces.
Export XLSX produces the same content, including both disclosure sections. That is a deliberate refusal to let the tidier version be the one that travels. The sheet is the artefact that gets emailed to an auditor, a lender or a group finance team, and a disclosure that exists only on screen is a disclosure that does not exist.
Why funded schemes refuse to compute rather than producing a figure. DIFC DEWS and the alternative end-of-service savings scheme under Cabinet Resolution 96/2023, issued on 10 October 2023, are registered as options in the module but are not implemented. Both replace the Article 51 gratuity with a funded contribution, which is a different liability entirely, so the module refuses to compute rather than posting a mainland provision that does not apply to you. If your company is set to one of them, the run tells you the provision method is registered but not implemented, and your two honest choices are to switch the company back to the mainland method or to commission the contribution engine.
What the Cabinet Resolution 96/2023 scheme actually commits you to. It is voluntary for the employer, but once an employer enrols an employee it is mandatory for that employee, with a minimum one-year commitment and no route back to traditional gratuity for anyone enrolled. The employer's monthly subscription is 5.83% of basic wage below five years of service and 8.33% at five years or more. Employees may contribute voluntarily on top, up to 25% of total wage. Entitlements are payable within 14 days, matching the Article 53 deadline. Source: Cabinet Resolution 96/2023.
| Employee | Continuous service | Basic wage | Employer's monthly subscription if enrolled |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rania | 7 years and 6 months | AED 12,000 | 8.33%, or AED 999.60 |
| Aisha | 4 months | AED 6,000 | 5.83%, or AED 349.80 |
The failure mode. Reading the register total as the liability and skipping past the two sections underneath it. Those sections are where the employees you cannot measure and the employees you fund elsewhere are named, and both are exactly the populations an auditor will ask about. Treat the difference figure as a monthly task with a named owner, and treat a non-empty Service could not be measured section as a data-quality ticket rather than as a footnote.