Setting up a Nigerian or Kenyan business on Achekam
What changes when a business registers its Achekam workspace as Nigerian or Kenyan, the settings to check first, and a checklist for the first week.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Running a business businesses in Nigeria, Kenya
The first hour in a new accounting system sets the tone for the next year. Choose the right country and the right pack, and invoices, VAT codes and payroll follow your own law from the first document. Skip a step, and you can spend months correcting South African assumptions out of a Nigerian or Kenyan set of books.
This article is for the owner, finance manager or bookkeeper setting up a business workspace on Achekam in Nigeria or Kenya. It explains what the country choice changes, which rules wait for approval, and what to check in the first week before real transactions go in.
Choosing the country at sign-up
A business can sign up as a business, rather than as an accounting firm, choose its country, and get its own workspace, its own books and its own web address on the Achekam domain. The person who signs up becomes the administrator.
The country choice is the important part. Registering the workspace as Nigerian makes the Nigeria pack its default; registering it as Kenyan makes the Kenya pack its default. A workspace with no jurisdiction recorded is treated as South African, which is the root of most surprises later. If several people are setting up workspaces for a group, agree beforehand who picks the country, and check it on day one.
Currency and time zone on activation
The pack becomes active when an administrator activates it. On activation:
| Nigeria | Kenya | |
|---|---|---|
| Pack | NG_FRC_2026 | KE_ICPAK_2026 |
| Currency | Naira (NGN) | Shilling (KES) |
| Time zone | Africa/Lagos | Africa/Nairobi |
The currency and time zone are set only if they are not already set. If someone chose a currency or time zone during sign-up, activation leaves it alone, so look at both afterwards and correct anything that is wrong.
Deadlines in Achekam's filing calendar are set to the end of the day in Lagos or Nairobi time, so the calendar works on your country's clock whatever the setting shows. Correct the setting anyway, so that everything else your staff see matches the country you trade in.
Activating the pack for local tax codes
Invoice tax codes follow your country only once the pack is activated under Settings, Jurisdiction & regulators. After that, every invoice line in a Nigerian or Kenyan workspace carries a tax code: standard, zero-rated, exempt, out of scope or reverse charge, with VAT only on standard lines.
Use the invoice form under Accounting for your invoices. The New invoice form under Billing & Finance offers only 15% or 0% VAT and shows rand, so it does not follow Nigerian or Kenyan VAT. Telling staff this on day one saves a round of credit notes later.
Tax rules waiting for platform approval
Every Nigerian and Kenyan tax figure in Achekam's rule book was loaded "under review", and Achekam computes nothing from a figure until an Achekam platform administrator approves it. No user in your workspace can change a rate.
The effect you will notice first is on standard-rated invoice lines. While the VAT rate rule for your country awaits approval, Achekam refuses to charge standard-rate VAT and asks you to choose a code without VAT or to wait. That refusal is a sign the safeguard is working, not a fault. The ways to handle it are covered in charging VAT while rates await approval.
Payroll has a similar step of its own. If you run payroll, you set the business up as an employer under Nigerian or Kenyan rules when you create it, and no pay run uses a tax table until a named person in your business confirms your own copy of that table.
Screens that still show rand
The ledger screens show every amount in rand, and the chart of accounts is stored in ZAR, even for a Nigerian or Kenyan business. Your entries are in your own currency; the label on those screens is not. Relabel any report you export from the ledger before it goes to a bank, investor or board.
There are a few other places where South African defaults still show, such as the rate offered on supplier bills. They are listed, with workarounds, in screens that still assume South Africa.
Tax identifiers and payment gateways
Achekam checks the shape of your identifiers, not their truth. A Nigeria Tax ID is checked only for having 13 digits; a KRA PIN only for its pattern of a letter, nine digits and a letter. Neither is confirmed with the authority. Look yours up on the official portal and keep the evidence: Nigerian businesses can follow the NRS guide on how to retrieve a Tax ID with a CAC registration number, and Kenyan businesses can use the PIN checker on iTax.
If customers will pay online, a workspace administrator enters the business's own gateway credentials under Settings, Payment Gateways & Checkout, and can test each connection with a real call to the gateway before any customer sees a pay link.
A first-week checklist
- Confirm the workspace's country is Nigeria or Kenya, not blank.
- Activate the pack under Settings, Jurisdiction & regulators.
- Check the currency and time zone after activation.
- Record your Tax ID or KRA PIN, with proof from the portal.
- Tell staff to invoice from the Accounting form only.
- Bring in opening balances: accounts, customers, suppliers and an opening-balance journal can be imported from CSV or Excel, and the move must reconcile to the cent before a second person approves the cut-over.
- Set up and test any payment gateways.
- If you run payroll, create the employer under your country's rules and confirm the tax table.
Accounting firms setting up packs for clients have their own guide in setting up the Nigeria and Kenya packs. Work through the eight steps before your first live invoice, and keep a note of who did each one and when.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
