AWRA Help Center

Open VAT return at /accounting/tax-returns, choose the Period (a month) and press Show. AWRA prepares the figures; you file them with the tax authority yourself, in KRA iTax or your authority’s own portal, and then record the reference here. Submitting the return to KRA from AWRA is something we can add to your workspace.

Where The Figures Come From

• Output tax — what the month’s issued invoices and till sales charged, less credit notes applied in the month and till returns.
• Input tax — what the month’s approved supplier bills carried.
• Net VAT payable — output less input.
• By category — standard rated, zero rated, exempt, imports and reverse charge (services from abroad), with a line per document, so every total leads to the transaction behind it.
• Withholding tax — shown for the month beside the return from its own register, never added into VAT. See Withholding Tax.

Tie To The Ledger And Exceptions

Tie to the ledger compares the documents with the month’s movement on Taxes Payable and Input Tax Recoverable. A difference is shown, not netted away: it means a document and its posting disagree — a manual journal to a tax account, a posting refused for want of an exchange rate, or a document dated in one month and posted in another. Exceptions lists them; check these before preparing.

Prepare, File, Reopen

1. Once the month has ended, press Prepare and lock. The figures are frozen as the return, and the period is locked for tax: nothing posts to Taxes Payable or Input Tax dated inside it. The rest of the month stays open until you close it in the usual way.
2. Press Export workbook for an Excel file with Summary, Sales, Purchases and Exceptions sheets, and file from it.
3. After filing, enter the Acknowledgement reference and press Mark filed. AWRA records who marked it and when; it does not submit anything itself.
4. To correct a prepared return that is not yet filed, give a Reason to reopen and press Reopen. A filed return stays filed; correct it in the next period, or with an amended return.

The Returns table lists past periods with their status, net payable and reference.

Permissions

• View accounting — see a month’s figures and export the workbook.
• Prepare tax returns — prepare and lock a period.
• File tax returns — mark a prepared return filed, or reopen it.

The VAT return is also in the AWRA mobile app: read a month’s figures, prepare and lock it, and mark it filed with the acknowledgement reference (each needs a connection). Reopening a prepared return stays on the web.

For an inspection that covers more than one month, the tax audit export puts every output and input tax line, credit notes, withholding, the rate history and these returns into one workbook for a date range.

Common Mistakes

• Preparing with exceptions open. The frozen return then disagrees with the ledger. Clear the exceptions, or note why each one is right.
• Expecting a late document to change a prepared month. A late invoice or bill dated inside a prepared or filed period is posted on the first day of the next unlocked period, with a note saying so, and is declared there. A manual journal to a tax account dated inside it is refused. To include it in this month, reopen the return before it is filed.
• Reading Accounting → Taxes as the return. That page shows tax account balances; the return is this page.

Related

• KRA eTIMS Filing — the invoices that reach eTIMS as they are issued.
• Receivable Write-Offs — a bad debt leaves output VAT as it is.
• Month-End Close — closing the month after the return.
• KRA eTIMS & tax compliance — the feature page.