Recording a Nigerian tax payment with its RRR

How a Nigerian business records a tax payment in Achekam with the RRR or DIN the authority issued, attaches the receipt and has a second person confirm it.

By Achekam · 11 October 2026 · 4 min read · For Running a business businesses in Nigeria

A tax payment that cannot be traced is almost as bad as one never made. The money leaves your account, the bank statement shows a debit, and months later the NRS says it has no record of the VAT for that month. Somewhere between your bank and the tax authority's ledger, the payment lost the reference that tied it to your Tax ID, the tax and the period.

In Nigeria, that reference is the authority's own: an RRR or a DIN. This article explains why Achekam records Nigerian tax payments with those references and never invents its own, what to attach, who confirms the record, and the one check Achekam cannot make for you.

The reference comes from the authority

Achekam records a Nigerian tax payment with the authority's own reference and receipt: an RRR or a DIN. The reference is created by the authority's payment process when you set up the payment, not by your business and not by your accounting software.

Since 30 April 2026, the NRS's Rev360 portal (selfservice.nrs.gov.ng) handles registration, filing, payments, refunds and tax clearance certificates, replacing TaxPro Max in phases. The NRS describes the self-service portal as the place where taxpayers register, file and pay taxes online, download tax clearance certificates and receipts, update their profile and track filings and payments. For a federal tax, that is where the payment and its receipt start. State taxes follow each State's own channel.

Achekam never makes a payment reference

Achekam never generates a payment reference for a Nigerian tax payment, and there is a good reason for that. A reference made up by software means nothing to the authority, and a payment recorded against one can look settled in your books while remaining unallocated in the NRS's. Every reference in your Nigerian tax records in Achekam came from the authority.

Attaching the receipt

The reference alone is not enough. Attach the authority's receipt to the payment record: the payment receipt from the portal, or the bank's confirmation showing the reference and amount. The receipt is what proves the payment reached the authority against that reference, on that date, for that amount.

Keep the original download, not a photograph of the screen. If the payment is ever questioned, a clean copy of the authority's own receipt settles it faster than anything else.

A second person confirms the payment

A Nigerian tax payment recorded in Achekam needs a second person to confirm it. The confirmer compares:

1. the reference on the receipt with the reference typed into Achekam;
2. the amount on the receipt with the amount recorded and the amount on the approved return;
3. the tax and period on the receipt with the return the payment is meant to settle.

The return itself has already been through three people. In Achekam, a Nigerian tax return is prepared by one person, reviewed by a second and approved by a third, after which its rule snapshot and figures are frozen. The payment record ties the money to that frozen return, so the confirmer is checking the last link in a chain that is otherwise controlled.

Reference formats that are not checked

Here is the limit to know. Achekam does not validate the format of RRRs or DINs. It will accept whatever reference is entered. A transposed digit, a missing character, or a reference copied from last month's payment will not be caught by the software.

That makes the second person's check the real control. It is worth doing properly, with the receipt open beside the record, rather than as a click to clear a queue. A mistyped reference found on the day is a correction; found during an audit two years later, it is an investigation.

Paying by the due date

The reference and receipt prove when you paid, which matters because lateness is costly:

• Late payment of tax attracts a 10% penalty plus interest, at the Central Bank of Nigeria's monetary policy rate plus a spread.
• Withholding tax not remitted to the NRS by the 21st of the following month attracts 10% a year plus interest, and failing to deduct it attracts a 40% penalty.

The full picture of filing and payment penalties is in what a late Nigerian tax return costs, and withholding tax remittance has its own article, withholding tax remittance penalties.

If the authority cannot find your payment

Sooner or later, a payment you made will not show against the right tax on the authority's side. Before you contact anyone, assemble the evidence in one place: the reference, the authority's receipt, the bank statement line showing the debit, and the approved return the payment was meant to settle. With those four together, the conversation with the NRS or the State is about where the money went, not whether it was paid.

While the question is open, leave the payment record in Achekam as it is rather than deleting or re-entering it, and keep the correspondence with the rest of the evidence. If the authority reallocates the money and issues a corrected receipt, file it alongside, so the history shows both what happened and how it was resolved. A record with its whole history is worth more to a future reviewer than a tidy one with the problem quietly removed.

A payment record checklist

Do it the same day. The portal that issues the receipt is explained in Rev360: the NRS portal that replaced TaxPro Max.

General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.