September 14, 2026 / 7 min read

eTIMS in practice: what KRA invoice compliance means for your CRM

If you sell in Kenya and invoice through a CRM, the electronic Tax Invoice Management System (eTIMS) is part of your daily reality. This post is the short version of what we learned building our eTIMS Compliance module for GoHighLevel, without the legal boilerplate.

What eTIMS actually is

eTIMS is the Kenya Revenue Authority's system for receiving invoice data at the moment of sale. Every invoice a registered business issues must be transmitted to KRA, which validates it and returns a signed confirmation with a Unique Invoice Identifier (UIU) and a QR code. The buyer needs that invoice for input VAT claims, so an invalid invoice is not a paperwork problem. It is a customer-facing problem.

The key mental model: eTIMS is not an accounting product. It is a transmission requirement layered on top of whatever you already use to bill. If your CRM collects a payment and issues a receipt, that document needs to reach KRA in a compliant format.

The fields that trip people up

A compliant eTIMS invoice needs a validated buyer identity: a Personal Identification Number (PIN) for business buyers, properly formatted names and contact details, and the correct invoice type. In practice, the failure points we see are:

• Buyer PINs captured free-text in a CRM field with no validation
• Discounts and partial payments recorded in a way that changes the taxable amount after submission
• Credit notes issued outside eTIMS when a customer disputes a charge
• Currency mismatch: M-Pesa settlement amounts that do not reconcile with the invoice line items

None of these are exotic. All of them produce invoices that KRA rejects or, worse, accepts and flags later.

Where a module fits

Our GoHighLevel eTIMS module does three things. It validates buyer details at capture time, so a bad PIN never reaches the invoice. It transmits each invoice to eTIMS the moment payment completes, attaching the returned UIU and QR code to the contact record. And it issues compliant credit notes through the same channel, so refunds stay inside the audit trail.

What it deliberately does not do is absolve the merchant. Under Kenyan tax law, the obligation to issue compliant invoices sits with the seller. A module makes meeting that obligation practical, but the VAT return, the reconciliation, and the accuracy of what you bill remain yours. We say this in the module listing and in our compliance page, because software that implies otherwise is selling you audit risk.

If you are evaluating any eTIMS tool

Ask three questions. Does it validate buyer PINs before submission? How are credit notes handled? And does the vendor clearly state that your tax obligations remain yours? A tool that passes those three is worth a demo.