A recurring discovery in audits: the accounting software produced numbers, but not the registers the regulation asks for. The finance team then rebuilt them by hand each period — which is both a cost and a risk.
Registers, not just calculations
Computing VAT on an invoice is the easy part, and most packages do it. What is frequently missing is the prescribed register format — the purchase and sales records that must be maintained and presented in a specific structure.
Software that calculates correctly but cannot produce the register has solved the arithmetic and left you the paperwork.
Withholding handled at source
Withholding tax needs to be applied at the point of the transaction, against the correct rate for that category of supply, and tracked to the certificate issued to the supplier.
Handled in a spreadsheet afterwards, this is where reconciliation problems concentrate.
A ledger that stays balanced
Underneath all of it, the ledger must be genuinely double-entry. A system that stores transactions as flat records and derives reports on demand will eventually produce a trial balance that does not balance — and reconstructing why, months later, is expensive.
This is why we build accounting on strict double-entry from the first migration. It constrains development slightly, and it means the audit is a review rather than an investigation.
A note on scope
Regulation changes, and specific rates and formats should always be confirmed with your VAT consultant or the current NBR guidance. What software can guarantee is structure: correct posting, complete records and reproducible reports.
We answer technical questions from people who are not clients. If this is a problem you are facing, write to us and we will tell you what we would do.
Ask a question →