VAT and tax compliance, computed from your books

Each workspace has its own tax registrations: the tax, its rate, how often you file and, where it matters, which state or emirate it belongs to. New workspaces start with sensible defaults for their country, and you or your accountant can change them. A business registered for VAT, paying staff and withholding tax on supplier payments sees all three in one place.

Yako keeps a calendar of your tax obligations and lists upcoming filings on the workspace overview with everything else that needs attention. Obligations are created as the work happens: confirming a payroll month creates the PAYE and pension due for it, and a bill with withholding tax creates the amount due for that supplier.

• VAT: output VAT on invoices issued in the period, less credit notes, less input VAT on bills received. Invoices and bills in another currency are converted at the rate for their date; one with no rate is left out and named in a warning, never added at face value.
• PAYE, pension and other payroll taxes: from the payroll months you confirmed.
• Withholding tax: from bill lines posted to accounts that carry a withholding rate.
• Corporate tax: an estimate from the profit in your books at your rate.

Each return shows where its figures came from and warns you about gaps, such as a payroll month that hasn’t been confirmed. When you record a filing, the return is saved exactly as it was, so it can be reproduced later even if the books change.

For every tax and period, Yako compares three numbers: what the books say you should owe, what you declared, and what your payment receipts show you paid. Each period gets a plain status, such as compliant, under-declared, unpaid or under-paid, and the amount at risk is shown on its own. Upload the filing and the payment receipt to keep the proof with the period.

Every invoice and bill line carries its VAT treatment: standard, zero-rated, exempt, out of scope or reverse charge. One invoice can mix them, and each line lands in the right part of the return. Older 0% lines with no treatment are flagged rather than guessed.

Invoices are titled Tax Invoice when you have a tax number and show your tax number and your customer’s, the date of supply, each line’s VAT and a VAT summary by rate and treatment. Credit notes come as Tax Credit Note PDFs that name the invoice they correct. Once issued, an invoice stays issued: you correct it with a credit note, so the return and the books stay in step.

Yako doesn’t submit returns to the tax authority. You, or your accountant, file on the government portal using the figures Yako prepared, then record the filing in Yako. Many owners give their tax adviser a time-limited engagement to check the return before it goes in.

United Arab Emirates. VAT at 5% laid out in the FTA’s VAT201 boxes, ready to type into EmaraTax, including reverse charge on services and goods bought from abroad. Corporate Tax at 9% above AED 375,000 is tracked with its deadline 9 months after your year end. Read UAE VAT and Corporate Tax in Yako.

Nigeria. The Nigeria Tax Act 2025 is built in from 1 January 2026: PAYE on the new bands with rent relief, the small-company test that sets company income tax and the development levy, VAT at 7.5% with input VAT on services and fixed assets, and withholding tax on bills. Earlier periods keep the old rules. Read Nigerian tax in Yako.

Elsewhere. Taxes are configurable per workspace, so a business in another country can set up its own rates and filing frequencies.

The UAE and Nigeria are both introducing e-invoicing. We’re preparing Yako for both, and the invoice data it already keeps (line treatments, tax numbers, structured addresses, the customer’s Peppol ID in the UAE) is what e-invoicing needs. It isn’t live yet.

• How bank statements become the books these returns are built from
• Pricing