Why a checklist matters
Go-live is the point where eTIMS starts touching real sales and customers. If something was missed in setup, it shows up here as a failed invoice or a confused cashier. A checklist catches the gaps while there is still time to fix them.
The aim is that your first compliant invoice, and the hundredth, just work. Everything below should be confirmed before you flip to live.
The eTIMS go-live checklist
- 1
Registration and control unit ready
Confirm the business is registered on eTIMS and the control unit (OSCU or VSCU) is set up and signing.
- 2
Items and tax types mapped
Every product has a valid item code and the correct tax type, so invoices are accepted.
- 3
Sandbox testing passed
A standard invoice, the tax types, credit notes and offline-then-sync all work in the sandbox.
- 4
Staff trained
Cashiers can ring a sale, take cash, M-Pesa and card, issue a receipt and handle a return.
- 5
Offline and reconciliation confirmed
Selling offline and syncing works, and control numbers reconcile so you can confirm compliance.
- 6
First-day plan
Someone watches the first day to catch and fix any issue quickly.
Mistakes to avoid
Going live without staff training
A working system still fails if cashiers do not know how to use it. Train before go-live.
Unmapped items
A single unmapped product interrupts a sale. Confirm the whole catalogue is mapped.
No offline test
If you have not tested selling offline, an outage on day one stops trade. Test it first.
No one watching the first day
Small issues are cheap to fix early and costly later. Have someone on hand at go-live.
A worked example
A supermarket prepared for eTIMS go-live by working through a checklist rather than just switching on.
They confirmed registration and the control unit, mapped every product, passed sandbox tests including credit notes, trained all cashiers, and tested offline selling. On the first day a manager watched the tills. The few small questions that came up were answered on the spot, and trading never stopped.
Because the checklist was done, go-live was a normal day, not a crisis.
Trading without eTIMS-compliant tax invoices risks KRA penalties, blocked VAT input claims for your customers, and receipts a business buyer cannot expense.
Veira signs every sale to KRA eTIMS automatically, so each receipt is compliant the moment it prints, with no separate device to reconcile.
How Veira helps
Veira walks you through this go-live preparation as part of onboarding, confirming registration, mapping, testing and training so you start compliant and confident, with local support on hand for the first days.
You get a smooth go-live without assembling the checklist yourself. See how Veira works or book a demo.