Keeping the firm's own NG or KE tax returns
How a Nigerian or Kenyan firm can keep its own tax returns in Achekam, how they differ from client returns, and what still waits for rule approval.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in Nigeria, Kenya
Accounting firms are notoriously late with their own paperwork. The firm that files every client's VAT return on time files its own on the last evening, from a spreadsheet nobody else understands, because client work always comes first.
For a Nigerian or Kenyan firm on Achekam, the firm's own returns can sit in the same place as its clients', under the same prepare, review and approve discipline. They are not identical to client returns, though, and the differences matter. This article explains what changes when the taxpayer is the firm itself.
A tax profile for the firm
Staff can open a Nigerian or Kenyan tax profile for a client or for the firm itself, in the Revenue Service Centre, and start returns that move through prepare, review and approve by different people. A return is prepared by one person, reviewed by a second and approved by a third, after which its rule snapshot and figures are frozen; an amendment is a new version.
That separation is as valuable for the firm's own returns as for a client's. A partner approving the firm's VAT return that a junior prepared and a manager reviewed is a much stronger position than one person preparing and filing alone.
VAT from the firm's own ledgers
Here is the main difference. 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 it. The firm's own VAT return is computed from its ledgers.
So for the firm's own return, the quality of the figures depends on the firm's own bookkeeping: invoices raised in Achekam, purchases captured, the period closed. Before preparing the return, reconcile the VAT accounts in the ledger and clear anything left in suspense.
A second difference follows. A Nigerian or Kenyan VAT return in Achekam lists the period's invoices, credit notes and till sales that are not fiscalised, but does not block the return. For a client's return computed from imported schedules, that check is not applicable. For the firm's own return, computed from its ledger, the list is a useful warning: any invoice on it has not been through the tax authority's system yet.
| Client return | Firm's own return | |
|---|---|---|
| Source of figures | Imported sales and purchase schedules | The firm's own ledgers |
| Unfiscalised invoice list | Not applicable | Shown, without blocking |
| Who prepares, reviews, approves | Three different people | Three different people |
How client returns are built from schedules is covered in client VAT from imported schedules.
E-invoices for the firm's own sales in Nigeria
A Nigerian firm can record its NRS e-invoicing registration, after which Achekam drafts an e-invoice for each invoice and credit note the firm issues, for the firm to upload through its provider. This covers the firm's own sales, not a client's.
Without a working provider connection, Achekam holds each e-invoice as manual pending, with a JSON or XML file for the firm to upload through its Access Point Provider. The firm records the invoice reference number the provider returns, and a second person verifies it. Only then does the invoice count as fiscalised.
Two points to be clear on. Achekam is not an NRS-accredited Access Point Provider or System Integrator, and it never generates an invoice reference number itself. The firm's provider does that.
Kenya: eTIMS outside Achekam for now
A Kenyan firm is in a different position. No Nigerian or Kenyan tax-authority connection is live as shipped, and a Kenyan firm has no reachable eTIMS screen in Achekam; the Kenyan eTIMS item shows only a note. A Kenyan firm should therefore keep issuing its own eTIMS invoices through KRA's channels and keep the evidence with its records.
What waits for platform approval
The firm's returns are subject to the same condition as clients'. As shipped, Achekam computes no Nigerian or Kenyan tax figure, because the tax rules ship awaiting approval by Achekam's platform administrators and firms cannot approve them. Every figure in the rule book was seeded "under review", and nothing is computed from it until approved.
Check in your workspace whether the rules for the taxes you file are approved. Where they are not, compute the firm's own return outside Achekam as you do today, and use the profile to keep the return, its approvals and its evidence together.
Filing stays with a person in either case. Achekam does not file Nigerian or Kenyan returns. A Nigerian firm files its own returns on the NRS self-service portal, where taxpayers register, file and pay online, download tax clearance certificates and receipts, and track their filings and payments. A Kenyan firm files on iTax. Keep the portal's receipt with the approved return. Some regimes will not be computed even when rules are approved; client taxes Achekam will not compute lists them.
Keeping the firm's work apart from clients'
The firm's own tax records are sensitive in a particular way: they show the firm's revenue, its partners' arrangements and its margins. Staff who prepare client returns do not automatically need to see them.
A few practical habits:
- Decide who prepares, reviews and approves the firm's own returns, and keep that list short.
- Keep the firm's own tax working papers in a separate, clearly labelled place, not mixed into client folders.
- Diary the firm's own deadlines alongside the clients', with the same internal cut-off a fortnight early.
- Review the firm's own position with the same scepticism you would apply to a client's.
This quarter
Open the firm's own tax profile, prepare the next VAT return through it with three different people, and compare the result with the return you would have filed from your spreadsheet. Resolve the differences before the due date, and from then on run the firm's returns through the same workflow as everyone else's.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
