If you run a small business in Dubai, Riyadh, or Beirut, your "finance stack" probably looks like this: invoices in Word or a template someone emailed you in 2021, expenses in a WhatsApp folder of receipt photos, a spreadsheet that's supposed to be your ledger, a CRM you stopped updating in March, and an accountant you call twice a year in a mild panic. Staks replaces that stack with one platform: invoicing, quotes, expenses, real double-entry accounting, a sales pipeline, bills and inventory, payroll, and reports — with an AI agent that does the busywork and asks you to confirm before anything is saved or sent.
We're launching Staks publicly today, and this post explains what it is, who it's for, and why we built it for this region first.
Why does running an SME in MENA take five tools and a spreadsheet?
Most business software is built for somewhere else. Global accounting tools treat multi-currency as a premium add-on, assume your bank feeds work perfectly, and know nothing about a 5% VAT invoice in Dirhams, a ZATCA-compliant invoice in Riyals, or books that live in US dollars while your expenses arrive in Lebanese pounds. Regional tools tend to do one thing — accounting or invoicing or POS — so you end up stitching together subscriptions anyway.
The result is the stack described above. Data lives in five places, nothing reconciles, and the real state of the business exists only in the owner's head.
Staks starts from a different premise: a small business needs one system of record, and everything — every invoice, expense, bill, and payroll run — should land in real books automatically.
What does Staks actually include?
Everything below ships in one product, one subscription:
| Area | What you get |
|---|---|
| Invoicing | Unlimited invoices, quotes, and credit notes; 5 templates with your brand color; recurring invoices; payment tracking and reminders; PDF sends from your company name |
| Expenses | Manual entry or drop a receipt photo on the Agent; recurring expenses; categories and vendors |
| Accounting | Real double-entry books: chart of accounts, journal, automatic posting for every document, P&L, balance sheet, cash flow |
| Multi-currency | Issue documents in any currency; the ledger converts with historical exchange rates into your primary currency |
| CRM | Contacts, companies, and a sales funnel with deals and stages |
| Bills & inventory | Purchase bills, stock movements, automatic cost of goods sold |
| Payroll & HR | Employees, payroll runs, commissions, performance tracking |
| Reports | Business reports plus weekly or monthly email digests |
| The Agent | An AI that imports data, reads receipts, drafts documents, and answers questions about your numbers — with confirm-first actions |
The part that matters most is the word automatic. When you mark an invoice paid, revenue posts to the ledger. When you log an expense, it lands in the right account. You get accountant-grade books without doing accountant work.
What makes the Staks Agent different from a chatbot?
Most "AI features" in business software are a chat window that answers questions. The Staks Agent answers questions too — "what's my profit this month?", "who owes me money?" — but it also acts:
- Drop a spreadsheet of 500 old invoices on it and it maps the columns, shows you a preview, and imports the lot — creating any missing clients along the way.
- Photograph a stack of receipts and it extracts vendor, amount, date, and category for each one.
- Ask it to "draft an invoice for Al Noor Trading for 12,000 AED" and it prepares the document.
Every action is shown to you first. Nothing is created, changed, or emailed until you confirm it. That confirm-first design is a deliberate choice: AI should remove busywork, not add anxiety.
From the platform: The Agent is also how you migrate. Instead of a painful "import wizard," you drop your existing exports — invoices, contacts, expenses, products — into the chat, review the mapping, and confirm. Most businesses bring years of history over in an afternoon.
Why MENA first?
Three reasons.
Multi-currency is normal here, not an edge case. A Lebanese agency bills in USD and pays rent in LBP. A Dubai consultancy invoices clients in AED, EUR, and GBP in the same week. Staks treats every currency as first-class and keeps the ledger honest with historical exchange rates.
Compliance is regional. VAT at 5% in the UAE and 15% in Saudi Arabia, corporate tax arriving for UAE businesses, e-invoicing mandates rolling out on both sides of the Gulf — your software should be built with this calendar in mind, not adapted to it later.
The region is underserved. Global players have largely declined to localize for MENA, and much of what remains is either enterprise software or single-purpose tools. Small businesses here deserve software as good as anywhere else.
What does Staks cost?
Simple, per-organization pricing. Annual billing gets two months free.
| Plan | Monthly | Annual | Built for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $19/mo | $190/yr | Freelancers and solo founders — 2 users, 50 AI credits/mo |
| Growth | $49/mo | $490/yr | Growing SMBs and agencies — full accounting, 2 entities, 5 users, 200 AI credits/mo |
| Scale | $99/mo | $990/yr | Multi-entity companies — payroll, unlimited entities, API/MCP access, 15 users, 500 AI credits/mo |
Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial — no sales call, no setup fee.
Frequently asked questions
Is Staks accounting software or invoicing software?
Both. Invoicing is the front door, but every document posts into real double-entry books underneath. When your accountant asks for a trial balance at year-end, it's already there.
I'm not an accountant. Will I understand it?
That's the point. You work with invoices, expenses, and deals — words you already use. The debits and credits happen automatically in the background, and they're there if you (or your accountant) want to look.
Does the AI ever act without me?
No. The Agent prepares actions and you confirm each one before anything is saved or sent. You can also ignore the AI entirely and use Staks as a normal — very fast — business app.
Can I connect my own AI assistant?
Yes. The Scale plan includes an MCP connector, so Claude, ChatGPT, and other assistants can read your live numbers and, with your permission, create documents. Read more in Can AI do your bookkeeping?
What if I already have years of data elsewhere?
Bring it. The Agent imports spreadsheets and exports from other tools — invoices, contacts, expenses, vendors, products — with a review step before anything lands in your books.
Where to go from here
If you're comparing tools, start with our honest comparison of the best accounting software for small businesses in the UAE — we include ourselves and say where competitors win. If you're a freelancer, our guide to invoicing as a freelancer in the UAE covers permits, VAT, and getting paid.
Or just try it: start your 14-day free trial →