India firm integrates system with KRA eTIMS to support SMEs

Visitors at the Tally Solutions stand during the second day of the 4th Edition of the SMEs Conference and Expo held at the KICC grounds on March 16, 2023. 

Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group

An India-based technology company, Tally Solutions has integrated its system with the Kenya Revenue Authority's (KRA) electronic tax invoice management system (e-TIMS) as it targets the ever-growing small and medium business landscape.

The multinational tech company announced that it has been allowed by KRA to integrate with eTIMS to provide end-to-end compliance for companies that have difficulties on-boarding to the platform.

Mukesh Khanna, head of strategy and key initiatives at Tally Solutions, noted that the firm already helps small businesses to automate their accounting and inventory management systems, with the integration going further to help them generate invoices.

“The information that will be shared with KRA will always match the books and records the business maintains. The data of the books resides with the business owner and they decide to share it,” he said.

eTIMS is a software solution that provides taxpayers with options for a simple, convenient, and flexible approach to electronic invoicing. Taxpayers can access eTIMS on various computing devices.

Hakamba Wangwe, KRA’s chief manager for eTIMS, said the integration would help business automate their businesses: “It is a legal requirement for the taxpayers to maintain a record of their transactions.”

Small businesses have struggled to comply with eTIMS with the Parliamentary Finance Committee proposing in the rejected Finance Bill 2024 that firms with a turnover of less than Sh1 million spared from the requirement of generating the tax invoice through this system.

Only 120,000 registered taxpayers with business income signed up to eTIMS in the year to June, representing 18.1 percent of about 663,000 firms in the taxman’s book.

Currently, every person who makes a sale must generate an electronic tax invoice, a requirement that most small businesses, including farmers, have struggled to comply with.

More than three-quarters of registered companies have snubbed the eTIMS, dealing a blow to efforts to drive compliance and curb tax evasion.

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