What a compliant eTIMS invoice contains
A compliant eTIMS invoice is not just a price and a total. It carries a specific set of fields that make it a valid tax document: the seller's details and KRA PIN, the buyer's PIN where the customer is a business that needs to claim, each item or service with its quantity, price and tax treatment, the totals and VAT, and the KRA-issued control unit number, signature and QR code that prove it was registered.
Getting these right matters because a missing or wrong field can make the invoice unusable for your customer or questionable in a review. The most common field that trips businesses up is the buyer PIN, without which a business customer cannot claim. A compliant system fills these fields automatically from your product setup and customer records, so you are not assembling them by hand. Confirm the exact current field requirements with KRA.
Get this right and it runs quietly in the background of your business. Get it wrong and you risk rejected invoices, disallowed expenses for your customers, and exposure during a KRA review under the Tax Procedures Act. Confirm the current rules and any penalty amounts with KRA, as they change.
Compliance is not extra admin if the system does it for you on every transaction.
How to get every field right
A practical path for a Kenyan business. Work through it in order.
- 1
Set up seller details and PIN once
Configure your business name, KRA PIN and details in the system so they appear correctly on every invoice.
- 2
Capture the buyer PIN for business customers
When the customer is a business that needs to claim, capture its KRA PIN so the invoice carries it.
- 3
Map items to the right tax treatment
Set each product or service to its correct standard, zero-rated or exempt treatment so the tax fields are right per line.
- 4
Let the system add the control fields
The control unit number, signature and QR code come from KRA on transmission. A compliant system adds them automatically.
- 5
Keep reconciled records
Reconcile what you issue and receive as you go, so any reporting and filing summarise records you already hold rather than a month-end reconstruction. KRA can review records going back several years.
- 6
Confirm the current rules with KRA
Rates, thresholds, exemptions and deadlines change. Before relying on a specific figure, confirm the current position at kra.go.ke or with your tax adviser.
Common mistakes to avoid
Omitting the buyer PIN
Without the buyer PIN, a business customer cannot claim the cost and will return the invoice. Capture it at the sale.
Wrong tax treatment on a line
A line set to the wrong rate makes the VAT field wrong. Map each item to its correct treatment.
Treating a receipt without control fields as compliant
A receipt without the control unit number, signature and QR code is not a recorded eTIMS invoice. Issue through a compliant system.
Waiting for a deadline before getting compliant
Every uncompliant transaction is a gap you have to explain later. Getting compliant now is cheaper than catching up under pressure.
Relying on a system that cannot work offline
Connectivity is not guaranteed everywhere in Kenya. Use a system that records offline and transmits to KRA when the connection returns, so you never fall out of compliance during an outage.
A supplier gets the fields right
A supplier in Nairobi kept issuing invoices that looked complete but lacked the buyer PIN, so corporate customers kept sending them back unable to claim.
On a compliant system, the supplier captured each business customer's PIN at the point of sale, and the system filled the seller details, tax per line and the control fields automatically.
The invoices were accepted first time, customers could claim, and the back-and-forth over missing fields stopped.
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 handles this for you
Veira is built for Kenyan businesses. It issues compliant KRA eTIMS invoices automatically on every sale, applies the right tax treatment per item, captures the buyer KRA PIN for business customers, keeps your records reconciled and ready for filing, and reconciles M-Pesa and Pochi payments to each sale.
It runs on a free handheld terminal or the phone you already own, keeps working offline, and runs from KES 2,999 a month with a free terminal and a 30-day money-back guarantee. See how Veira works, or book a free demo.
Frequently asked questions
What must a compliant eTIMS invoice contain?
Why does the buyer PIN matter on an invoice?
What are the control unit number and QR code for?
Do I have to fill these fields by hand?
What is the most common field error?
Does Veira handle this automatically?
How much does eTIMS-compliant software cost?
eTIMS invoice fields comes down to recording the right thing, the right way, through a compliant system, and Veira does exactly that without extra work. See how Veira works, or book a free demo. Always confirm current KRA rules and rates at kra.go.ke, as they can change.