What you need before you start, the order it happens in, and the two steps that hold most people up.
Registering is less a form and more a sequence, and the parts that take time are not the parts people expect. The application itself is short. Getting your product list accepted is what actually decides how long you wait.
Have these to hand. Missing one of them is the usual reason a first attempt stalls.
eTIMS is registered to the taxpayer. The credentials belong to your business and cannot be borrowed from a supplier, a friend or the shop next door. If your business and personal affairs share a PIN, sort that out first.
You need to be able to log in as the taxpayer, not through someone who once did it for you. Recover the password before you begin rather than halfway through.
Registered name, address and branch details have to match what KRA already has. A trading name that differs from the registered one causes a mismatch.
Names, units and prices. You will need this sooner than you think, and gathering it is the single largest piece of work in the whole process.
ProtechBooks carries the onboarding credentials, keeps your product classifications searchable and transmits invoices as you sell — so the registration work is done once and not repeated every month. Plans from KSh 500 a month.
See pricing Start free trialeTIMS is not one product. There is a route for a business issuing a handful of invoices a month, and a route for a till that has to transmit every sale as it happens. Which one applies to you decides everything that follows, so settle it first rather than discovering it later.
You submit the application and KRA issues the credentials that let your system transmit. This step involves KRA and runs on their timetable — plan in days, not minutes, and do not schedule it for the week you are busiest.
Every item needs a KRA classification code before it can appear on an invoice. This is the step that surprises people and the one that takes the longest. A shop with eight hundred lines is looking at real work here unless the system can search and bulk-assign codes.
Issue a small number of real invoices and confirm they are accepted and that the codes print correctly on the receipt. Check a credit note too — refunds are the thing people forget until the first one goes wrong.
The application is short. The wait is the onboarding step, which runs on KRA's timetable and is measured in days rather than minutes, plus however long it takes you to classify your products. For a business with a small product list it can be quick; for a shop with hundreds of lines, the classification work is the real schedule.
Someone can help you do it, but the registration belongs to your business and your KRA PIN. Credentials cannot be shared or borrowed from another business. If an accountant handles it, make sure you end up holding the access yourself.
No. Keep trading. A system that queues invoices and transmits them once you are live means the wait costs you nothing. Stopping to wait for onboarding costs far more than the compliance ever would.
Classifying your products. Every item you sell needs a KRA code before it can appear on an invoice, and for a business with a long product list that is the bulk of the work. Being able to search codes and assign them in bulk turns a week into an hour.
It needs classifying before you can sell it on an invoice. This is why doing it inside the system you actually sell from matters more than it first appears — if classification means logging into a separate portal, it stops happening and invoices start getting rejected.
The plain-English version: what it is and why your customers are asking.
You bought an ETR machine. Here is where it stands now.
Written for the person who is not sure whether any of this is their problem.