AWRA Help Center

Open Accounting → Journal and choose Withholding Tax in the accounting sidebar. The screen shows one month at a time — pick it under Month and press Show — with what was deducted from suppliers, what has been remitted, what customers withheld from you, and your rates.

Setting Up

1. Under Rates, press Add rate. Give it a name, a rate in percent, and a kind — Income tax or VAT — and keep it active.
2. Open each supplier who should be deducted from (Procurement → Suppliers, then edit the supplier). In the Tax section, enter their Tax PIN and choose their default Withholding tax rate. Only active rates are offered.

Editing a rate later changes it for new bills only; bills already captured keep the rate they were captured at.

On The Bill

• A new supplier bill starts with the supplier’s default rate. You can choose a different rate, or none, on that bill.
• The amount withheld is the rate times the bill’s taxable value — its subtotal before VAT, for both income-tax and VAT withholding.
• The bill’s balance due is net of the withholding. That part is owed to the tax authority, not the supplier, so the bill page, payment runs and every pay screen pay the supplier the net.

What Posts, And When

• As the bill is settled — not when it is captured — each confirmed payment, and each debit note applied to the bill, books its share of the withholding: the withholding times what it settled over the bill’s net balance. Dr Accounts payable, Cr Withholding tax payable, dated when the payment or debit note happened, which is the date the register uses. The last settlement makes the total exact, and confirming the same payment again books nothing more.
• If a confirmed payment later fails: its share is reversed (Dr Withholding tax payable, Cr Accounts payable) and leaves the register.
• When you remit a month: Dr Withholding tax payable, Cr the account you paid from (Bank unless you choose another).
• When a customer withholds from you: the invoice is settled to Withholding tax recoverable instead of the bank, so the invoice closes and the tax sits where it can be claimed.

The Monthly Register

Deducted from suppliers lists every share of withholding booked in the month, one row per payment or debit note: supplier, PIN, bill and their invoice number, taxable value, rate, amount withheld and the date. Below it:

• Export for the return downloads a CSV, one row per payment’s share: supplier PIN, supplier, invoice number, invoice date, taxable value, rate, tax withheld, kind and the date deducted. It is a working file to prepare the return from.
• Certificates gives one PDF per supplier for the month, listing what was deducted from them bill by bill. Your organization’s PIN on it comes from the employer tax PIN in your HR settings, else the PIN on your eTIMS connection.

Remitting

1. Under Remitted for the month, check Still to remit, shown separately for income tax and VAT.
2. Press Record remittance. Choose the kind, enter the amount, the date paid, the payment reference and the account it was paid from.
3. Press Record remittance to post it. A remittance above what was withheld and not yet remitted for that month and kind is refused.
4. A remittance recorded in error can be undone with Reverse beside it: its journal is reversed and the month shows the amount as outstanding again.

When A Customer Withholds From You

On the customer invoice, record a payment with the method Withheld by customer (certificate number as reference), the amount withheld, and the certificate number as the reference. It settles that part of the invoice like any payment and appears under Withheld by customers on the register for the month.

Permissions

• View withholding tax — the register, the export and supplier certificates, and the sidebar link.
• Manage withholding tax — add and edit rates, record remittances.

Admins hold both. For any other role, an admin adds them in the role’s permissions.

Common Mistakes

• Expecting it in the month of the invoice. The register follows the payments. A bill paid half in October and half in November shows half its withholding in each month, and an unpaid bill shows the deduction on the bill but is not in any month’s register yet.
• Paying the supplier the gross. Pay the balance due, which is already net of withholding.
• A blank PIN column. Add the supplier’s Tax PIN on the vendor record before you export.
• Looking here for payroll tax. PAYE on salaries belongs to Payroll.

Related

• Supplier Bills — where the deduction is set.
• Payment Runs — pays suppliers the net.
• Invoices — recording a customer’s withholding.
• KRA eTIMS Filing — the sales side of tax in Kenya.
• Withholding tax — the feature page.