How to use eTIMS on your phone (eTIMS Lite, Android and iOS)

Who eTIMS Lite is for

eTIMS Lite is the free KRA mobile app aimed at small-scale taxpayers who issue a small number of invoices and do not need a counter, inventory, or staff handling sales. Consultants billing one project a month, beauty therapists with a handful of weekly appointments, small training providers, freelancers and small-scale agricultural sellers fall in this bucket.

For shop counters or restaurant tables, eTIMS Lite is the wrong tool. Each invoice is entered manually, there is no inventory tracking, there is no integration with M-Pesa Buy Goods, and the workflow is too slow to keep up with anything more than walk-up service trade.

Installing and signing in

You must register for eTIMS on the portal first (etims.kra.go.ke) and choose the Lite channel; if you choose OSCU or VSCU, the Lite app credentials will not be issued. KRA emails you instructions and an activation key.

Install eTIMS Lite from the Play Store (Android) or App Store (iOS). On first launch, the app asks for your KRA PIN and the activation key from KRA. Enter both, follow the OTP verification on the registered phone number or email, and set your in-app PIN.

From there, you log in with the PIN you set, not the activation key. The activation key was only for the first launch.

Issuing your first invoice on the app

Open the invoice form and fill in the buyer details. For a B2C cash or M-Pesa sale, the buyer PIN field stays empty. For a B2B sale, capture the buyer's KRA PIN; without it the buyer cannot claim the cost on their return.

Add each item or service: description, quantity, unit price, and tax rate (16% standard VAT, zero-rated, exempt, or out-of-scope depending on the supply). The app calculates the totals.

Tap submit. The app signs the invoice and transmits it to KRA in real time. You see a confirmation with the KRA-issued control number and a QR code. Share the invoice with the buyer through WhatsApp, email, or by showing them the QR code on the screen.

What the app does and does not do

eTIMS Lite handles the compliance step: it produces a valid eTIMS invoice that KRA accepts and the buyer can keep for their records. That is the entirety of what it does.

It does not track inventory. It does not reconcile M-Pesa payments against sales. It does not produce sales or margin reports. It does not separate cashiers or shifts. It does not work as a counter point-of-sale during a busy lunchtime rush. If you need any of that, the right answer is a certified POS integrator on OSCU, not a workaround on Lite.

When to outgrow the phone app

eTIMS Lite was designed by KRA as a low-friction entry point so that small taxpayers had no excuse not to comply. It does that job well. But several signs mean you have outgrown it: more than a few dozen invoices a month, a physical counter where customers wait, M-Pesa till payments that need reconciling, more than one person ringing up sales, or any stock you actually need to count.

Staying on Lite past that point produces avoidable problems: missed invoices when staff are busy, no record of what stock has moved, and no way to tell whether a take was rung through the system or pocketed. The eTIMS compliance step is still happening; the rest of the business operation is not.

eTIMS on your phone in four steps

1. Register on the portal and pick Lite. Go to etims.kra.go.ke, sign up, and choose eTIMS Lite as your channel. KRA emails you an activation key.
2. Install the app and activate. Install eTIMS Lite from Play Store or App Store, enter your PIN and the activation key, verify OTP, and set an in-app PIN.
3. Issue your first test invoice. Open the invoice form, fill in a small test sale, submit. Verify the control number and QR code appear, and that the invoice is visible on iTax.
4. Set up your sharing flow. Decide how you will deliver invoices to customers (WhatsApp link, email, in-person QR). For B2B sales, capture the buyer PIN every time.

How Veira handles this

For service businesses small enough to live on a phone, eTIMS Lite is fine. For everyone else, Veira runs eTIMS through OSCU on a Ciontek CS30 handheld or Android terminal so the eTIMS step happens inside the sale itself, M-Pesa reconciles automatically, and you keep your stock and your compliance in one tool rather than two.