eTIMS for small businesses in Kenya — what it means and how to get ready

What eTIMS is

eTIMS is KRA's electronic tax invoice system. Instead of an invoice existing only in your receipt book, the details are sent to KRA as the sale happens, and the receipt you hand over carries a code proving it was recorded. A handwritten receipt cannot do this, and neither can a till that is not connected to KRA.

Why your customers are asking

Businesses need properly generated tax invoices to support the expenses they claim. That pushes the requirement down the supply chain: your business customers cannot claim what they buy from you unless you can issue the right kind of invoice. This is usually how small suppliers first discover it matters — a good customer asks, and the answer decides whether the order continues.

Rules, thresholds and exemptions change. Confirm what applies to your business with KRA or your accountant — this page explains the shape of the thing, not your specific obligations.

What it takes, in practice

Your KRA PIN and branch

eTIMS is registered to the taxpayer, so the credentials belong to your business — they cannot be borrowed from a supplier or a friend.

A device is onboarded

KRA issues the credentials that let your system transmit. This step involves KRA and takes days rather than minutes.

Your products get codes

Every item you sell needs a KRA classification code and has to be registered before it can appear on an invoice. This is the step that surprises people.

Invoices start flowing

From then on, each sale is transmitted as you make it and the receipt carries the proof.

Where it usually goes wrong

Unclassified products. By far the most common cause of rejected invoices. A system that lets you search and bulk-assign codes turns a week into an hour.
Waiting for eTIMS before starting. There is no reason to stop selling while onboarding is in progress, as long as your system queues invoices and sends them once you are live.
A till that stops when KRA is unreachable. Outages happen. If your system refuses to complete a sale during one, it will be uninstalled by the afternoon.
Returns and credit notes forgotten. A refund has to reach KRA too, referencing the original invoice.

How ProtechBooks handles it

eTIMS is built into the till rather than bolted on beside it, which means there is no second system to remember and nothing to re-type.

Invoices are transmitted automatically as you sell
Receipts print with the KRA code on them
Product classification is searchable, with bulk assignment
Unsent invoices queue and retry on their own — a KRA outage never stops a sale
Credit notes and returns are transmitted against the original invoice
You can see exactly which documents are pending at any moment
You can sell from day one while your device onboarding is still in progress

We will walk you through onboarding. Getting the credentials from KRA is the slow part, and we do it with you rather than emailing you instructions.

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eTIMS, explained without the jargon