Setting up a firm's Nigeria or Kenya pack
How a Nigerian or Kenyan firm sets its practice country in Achekam, works through set-up, activates the pack, and what activation changes.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in Nigeria, Kenya
Software built in one country tends to assume that country everywhere: its tax authority, its company law, its currency and its regulators. For a practice in Lagos or Nairobi, the first question about any such system is how much of that assumption it can shed.
In Achekam, the answer is the country pack. A Nigerian firm works under the Nigeria pack and a Kenyan firm under the Kenya pack, and the pack is what brings in the right regulators, signing rules and tax workflows. A workspace with no jurisdiction recorded is treated as South African.
So setting up the pack is not a cosmetic step. It is the step that makes Achekam behave as a Nigerian or Kenyan practice system. Here is how it works.
Choosing the practice country
The practice country can be chosen at sign-up. A workspace registered as Nigerian gets the Nigeria pack (NG_FRC_2026) as its default; one registered as Kenyan gets the Kenya pack (KE_ICPAK_2026). A firm that chose Nigeria or Kenya at sign-up sees a banner until its set-up is finished.
A firm that did not choose at sign-up can set its practice country to Nigeria or Kenya under SETTINGS > Jurisdiction & regulators. That is also where the set-up steps and activation live.
The practice country is the firm's own. Clients are treated separately: Achekam taxes a client where the client is, meaning its country of incorporation or tax residence, not where the firm is. A Kenyan firm with a Ugandan client does not get a Kenyan tax profile for that client, because Achekam creates no Nigerian or Kenyan tax profile for a client in a country without a pack.
Working through the set-up steps
Each country has its own set-up steps. The most important concern the firm's regulatory standing:
- Nigeria: the firm's entry on the FRC register, and each signing professional's registration.
- Kenya: the firm's ICPAK licence, and each signing professional's registration.
Staff record these, and a different person must verify each one against the official register, with dated evidence. Achekam does not look these registrations up online; its "check online" call always answers UNAVAILABLE. Someone opens the register, checks the entry, and attaches the evidence.
This is more than housekeeping. Nigerian and Kenyan audit signing in Achekam depends on these verified records. In Nigeria, approving or issuing an audit report waits for the firm's FRC entry and the signing partner's details to be verified by a second person. In Kenya, signing waits for the partner's ICPAK practising certificate and annual licence to be verified, while a missing firm-licence check is only a warning. ICPAK's page on practitioner's licences sets out what a practising certificate and each licence category require. A firm that leaves these records unverified will find its partners unable to sign.
Only a Partner or Admin activates
Once the steps are done, the pack is activated from Settings. Only a user with the Partner or Admin role can activate it.
Activation does not hide what happened. It shows each effect as done, not available yet, or failed. Read that list. An effect marked "not available yet" is a feature waiting on something outside the firm's control; one marked "failed" needs attention before the firm relies on it.
Currency and time zone
On activation, the Nigeria pack sets the naira (NGN) and the Africa/Lagos time zone, and the Kenya pack sets the shilling (KES) and the Africa/Nairobi time zone, in each case unless the workspace already has them set.
Deadlines that Achekam computes for Nigerian and Kenyan assessments, such as objection and appeal dates, are set to the end of the day in Africa/Lagos or Africa/Nairobi.
Permissions after activation
Partners receive the pack's permissions by default, with one deliberate exception. No role receives the Nigerian or Kenyan filing permission (NG_NRS_FILE, KE_KRA_FILE) by default. A firm grants it only to named people.
That reflects how filing works in Achekam: it does not file with NRS or KRA itself, and recording that a return was filed is a responsibility the firm should give to specific people, not to a whole role. The return workflow is described in Nigerian and Kenyan returns: prepare, review, approve.
Automation templates that stay off
An active pack also offers Nigerian and Kenyan automation templates. They are offered only to firms with an active Nigeria or Kenya pack, and every one stays off until a person turns it on.
They are also modest by design. The templates only create work items and notices. They never file, pay, approve, object or verify. A template can remind a manager that a return is due; it cannot file the return, pay the tax or approve anything.
A set-up checklist
- Confirm the practice country under SETTINGS > Jurisdiction & regulators.
- Record the firm's FRC register entry or ICPAK firm licence.
- Record each signing professional's registration.
- Have a second person verify each record against the official register and attach dated evidence.
- Ask a Partner or Admin to activate the pack, and read the list of effects.
- Check the currency and time zone.
- Grant the filing permission to named people only.
- Review the automation templates and switch on only those the firm wants.
Once the pack is live, the firm's overview sits in the Regulatory Control Centre, described in the Regulatory Control Centre for NG and KE firms. Client VAT work is covered in a client's VAT return from imported schedules.
Book an hour with the partner who signs audit reports and the person who will verify registrations, and complete steps one to four together; activation is quick once those records are in place.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
