A client's NG or KE VAT return from imported schedules
How a firm computes a Nigerian or Kenyan client's VAT return in Achekam from sales and purchase schedules when the client's books are not linked.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in Nigeria, Kenya
Monthly VAT for clients is the steady, unglamorous core of many Nigerian and Kenyan practices. The client sends a spreadsheet of sales, a folder of supplier invoices, sometimes a printout from their own accounting package, and the firm turns it into a return before the deadline. The work is repetitive, and the risk is in the detail: an input claimed on an invoice that does not qualify, a credit note missed, a sale recorded in the wrong period.
Achekam handles client VAT for Nigerian and Kenyan firms in a specific way. It does not reach into the client's accounting system. It works from schedules the firm prepares. Understanding why, and what that means for the checks Achekam can and cannot run, is the key to using it well.
Why the client's books are not used
Achekam computes a client's Nigerian or Kenyan VAT return from imported sales and purchase schedules, because the client's own books are not linked to the firm's workspace. In the Revenue Service Centre, the client's sales and purchase lines are entered for the return rather than drawn from a ledger.
That is a practical reflection of how most firms work with these clients. The client keeps its books in its own package, or in no package at all. The firm receives the information, reviews it and computes the return. The schedules are the firm's working record of what was included.
The consequence is that the quality of the return depends on the quality of the schedules. Achekam cannot see a sale the client left out.
Preparing the schedules
A good schedule pair, sales and purchases, is built the same way each month:
- Sales: every invoice and credit note for the period, with date, customer, net amount, VAT and invoice number. Reconcile the total to the client's bank receipts or sales report.
- Purchases: every supplier invoice the client wants to claim, with the supplier, date, net amount, VAT and invoice number.
- Exceptions: anything excluded, and why.
For Kenyan clients, the purchase schedule needs one more column. Under Kenyan law, since 1 June 2023, input VAT can be claimed only against TIMS or eTIMS invoices. A purchase schedule that does not record each invoice's eTIMS details gives the reviewer no way to check that rule.
The firm's own return works differently
For the firm's own VAT return, Achekam works from the firm's ledgers, not schedules. And for that return it runs a check the client return does not get.
A Nigerian or Kenyan VAT return in Achekam lists the period's invoices, credit notes and till sales that are not fiscalised. The list does not block the return, but it shows the preparer what has not been through the authority's e-invoicing system.
There is a further point for the firm's own invoicing. While the Nigerian or Kenyan VAT rate rule awaits platform approval, Achekam refuses to charge standard-rate VAT on the firm's invoices and tells the user to choose a tax code without VAT or wait.
The fiscalisation check does not apply to client schedules
For a client's return computed from imported schedules, the fiscalisation check is not applicable. Achekam has no record of the client's invoicing, so it cannot say which of the client's documents were fiscalised.
That puts the check back on the firm. For Kenyan clients in particular, where the eTIMS rule on input VAT applies, the reviewer should look at the eTIMS column of the purchase schedule as a matter of routine, and ask the client about any purchase without it before including it.
Approved rules first
Before relying on any of this for a VAT season, check the rule position. Every Nigerian and Kenyan tax figure in Achekam's rule book was seeded "under review", and Achekam computes nothing from a figure until one of its platform administrators approves it. No firm user can change a rate. If the VAT rate rule a return needs is not yet approved, Achekam will not compute the figure.
For reference, at the time of writing, Nigeria's VAT rate is 7.5% and a Nigerian VAT return, including a nil return, is due on or before the 21st of the following month. Kenya's standard VAT rate is 16% under the VAT Act 2013, and a Kenyan VAT return is due by the 20th day after the end of the month. Rates and dates change: confirm both with NRS or KRA before each season.
Review, client approval and filing
The VAT return follows the same path as any Nigerian or Kenyan return in Achekam. It is prepared by one person, reviewed by a second and approved by a third, after which its rule snapshot and figures are frozen. A reviewer can then send the approved return to the client for e-signature with a summary PDF, which never includes the working papers. The full path is set out in Nigerian and Kenyan returns: prepare, review, approve.
A monthly routine
- Request the period's sales and purchase records from the client.
- Build the schedules, with eTIMS details for Kenyan purchases.
- Reconcile sales to the client's bank or sales report.
- Enter the schedules for the return in the Revenue Service Centre.
- Prepare, review and approve with three different people.
- Send the client the summary for e-signature.
- File through the authority's own portal and keep the receipt with the return.
Upcoming obligations appear in the Regulatory Control Centre once the calendar rule is approved. Firms that also audit VAT-registered clients may want to read the Audit Control Tower next.
Pick one monthly VAT client, rebuild last month's schedules in the format above, and see how many purchase lines the reviewer would now query.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
