Nigerian and Kenyan automation templates
What Achekam's Nigerian and Kenyan automation templates can do for a firm, what they will never do, and how to choose them and own the work they create.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in Nigeria, Kenya
A firm with Nigerian or Kenyan clients lives by the calendar: VAT and withholding tax returns every month, PAYE and statutory contributions, annual returns, objection windows that open the day an assessment arrives. Automation that turns those dates into tasks sounds like an obvious help, and it can be. It is also an area where firms are right to be wary of any software that claims to file for them.
Achekam's Nigerian and Kenyan automation templates are deliberately narrow. This article explains what they do, what they never do, how they are switched on, how to choose among them and who should own what they create.
Work items and notices only
The templates create work items and notices, and nothing else. A template turns an obligation the firm tracks into a task for someone, or a notice that something needs attention; it does no more than that.
The dates behind them come from rules. Achekam computes objection and appeal deadlines for Nigerian and Kenyan assessments from the approved administration rule, and its filing calendar leaves out any deadline whose rule is awaiting approval or contested, saying why. Deadlines fall at the end of the day in Lagos or Nairobi time.
That matters. Where a rule is still awaiting approval by Achekam's platform administrators, the deadline it would produce is not in the calendar, and there is nothing for a template to act on. The obligations list in the Regulatory Control Centre likewise stays empty until the calendar rule is approved. Read an empty list as "not yet computed", never as "nothing due". The NRS publishes its own tax calendar of filing and payment deadlines, and KRA publishes the Kenyan dates; keep the authority's calendar to hand while rules are pending.
Off until a person turns one on
Every template stays off until a person turns it on. Templates are offered only to firms with an active Nigeria or Kenya pack, which means the firm has set its practice country, worked through the set-up steps and activated the pack from Settings, and only a Partner or Admin can activate.
Nothing starts running because a firm signed up or activated its pack. Each template is a decision somebody at the firm makes.
Never file, pay, approve, object or verify
The templates never file, pay, approve, object or verify. Each of those acts has legal or financial consequences, and each stays with people:
- Filing. Achekam does not file Nigerian or Kenyan returns; a person files on Rev360 or iTax and uploads the portal's receipt for someone else to verify.
- Paying. Tax is paid by a person through the authority's channels, and Achekam records the payment with the authority's own reference, confirmed by a second person.
- Approving. Returns move through prepare, review and approve, each by a different person.
- Objecting. An objection is a legal document that a person drafts, signs and lodges.
- Verifying. Second-person checks stay with a second person.
One practical catch is worth checking before the first deadline. No role receives the Nigerian or Kenyan filing permission by default; a firm grants it to named people only. Make sure the people who will record filings actually hold it.
Choosing which templates to use
Switch on templates that turn a real, recurring obligation into work the firm already does. A sensible order:
- Deadlines that are short and unforgiving. If the templates offered to your firm cover assessment-related deadlines, start there, because objection windows leave little room for a late start.
- Monthly returns for clients the firm files for. These are predictable and benefit from a standing reminder.
- Annual obligations, where the firm handles them for the client.
Leave off templates for obligations the firm does not handle for a given client; a work item for a return the client files itself is noise that teaches staff to ignore the list. Review the selection after the first month and switch off anything creating work nobody acts on.
Who owns the work items
Automation creates work; it does not do it. Before switching a template on, decide who in the firm will own the work items it creates for each client, who reviews them, and what happens when one goes overdue. The usual answer is the client's account manager or the tax senior responsible for that client, with the partner watching overdue items.
A worked example in words: a Kenyan firm switches on a template for a group of clients whose returns it files. Each time the template creates a work item, it lands with the tax senior who looks after that client. The senior prepares the return, a reviewer checks it, and a person with the filing permission files on iTax, uploads the acknowledgement and asks a colleague to verify it. The work item is closed only when that evidence is in place. Nothing in that chain was done by the template except the reminder that started it.
Tell clients what the firm's reminders are and are not. A client who hears that the firm "has automation for deadlines" may assume returns file themselves; explain that the automation creates the firm's to-do list and that people still prepare, check and file.
Treat the templates as part of the firm's controls, not a replacement for them. They make sure a deadline becomes a task; people still have to see that the task is done properly and on time. Setting up the pack is covered in setting up the Nigeria or Kenya pack, and the oversight screen in the Nigerian and Kenyan regulatory control centre.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
