VAT Reports

If your business is registered for Value Added Tax, SabiBooks prepares a VAT summary for every month or quarter: the VAT you charged your customers, the recoverable VAT on your purchases, the balance you owe FIRS, and the filing deadline counted down for you.

Note

Most merchants will not use this page, and that is fine. As the app itself puts it: “Your business is not registered for VAT. If your annual turnover exceeds ₦25 million, you may need to register with FIRS.” If that is not you, you can skip VAT entirely — nothing else in SabiBooks depends on it.

VAT reports are for business owners only. Staff and managers can see the report card under Reports, but opening it shows “VAT reports are available for business owners only.”

Turning On VAT

1. Open Settings

   Go to Settings and open the Tax & VAT section (“VAT registration and tax settings”). Only the business owner can edit it.

2. Switch on VAT Registered

   Turn on the “VAT Registered” toggle. The help note explains who it is for: businesses registered for VAT with FIRS.

3. Fill in your details

   Field	What it is	Example
   VAT Registration Number	The number FIRS gave you	12345678-0001
   Default VAT Rate (%)	Nigeria’s standard rate, pre-filled	7.50
   Pricing Mode	”VAT Inclusive (prices include VAT)” or “VAT Exclusive (VAT added at checkout)“	see below
   Charge VAT on Credit Sales	Whether credit sales carry VAT too	On
   VAT Return Period	Monthly or Quarterly, matching how you file	Monthly

4. Save

   Tap “Save VAT Settings”. From here, VAT is applied to your sales and shown on invoices and receipts.

Pricing mode decides where the VAT sits. Inclusive means your shelf price already contains it: sell at ₦10,750 inclusive and that is ₦10,000 for you plus ₦750 VAT. Exclusive means VAT is added at checkout: a ₦10,000 item becomes ₦10,750 when the customer pays. Either way, your P&L revenue shows the ₦10,000 — the VAT is never counted as your income. See Reports and Analytics for how the P&L displays it.

Reading the VAT Report

Open Reports, then VAT Report. Switch between Monthly and Quarterly at the top to match your filing period, and move between periods with the arrows.

Three cards summarise the period:

Card	What it shows
Output VAT	The VAT you charged, with the standard-rated supplies it came from shown underneath
Input VAT	”Recoverable input VAT on expenses” — the VAT on your business purchases that reduces what you owe
Net VAT Payable	”Output VAT minus recoverable Input VAT” — the amount for your FIRS return. At zero it reads “Nil return”

Above the cards, the FIRS Filing Deadline banner shows the due date — the 21st of the month after the period ends — and changes tone as it approaches: Due Soon within a week, Overdue after it passes. A period with no VAT activity is marked “(Nil return — no VAT activity this period)”; a nil return may still need to be filed with FIRS, so the deadline stays visible.

Below the cards, a comparison block (“Compared to July 2026”) shows how Output VAT, Input VAT (Recoverable), and Net VAT Payable moved against the previous period, and VAT by Category breaks the output VAT down by what you sold.

How This Return Counts VAT

The report carries a short notice titled “How this return counts VAT”. It is worth reading once, because it explains the timing rule behind every figure on the page:

This return now counts VAT differently from before 10 August 2026, and the new basis applies to every period, including ones you have already filed. Output VAT is counted in the period you supply or invoice the goods or services — not when the customer pays — and input VAT is claimed on the date of your supplier’s bill. Figures for periods you already filed with FIRS may therefore differ from what you submitted; the return you filed stays as you filed it.

In plain terms: the month you do the work is the month the VAT belongs to. Issue a ₦107,500 VAT-inclusive invoice in July and get paid in September — the ₦7,500 output VAT sits in July’s return, because July is when you made the supply. This matches how FIRS expects VAT to be declared, and it means your VAT return and your Accrual-basis P&L always agree about which month a job belongs to.

If you filed returns before that date, the figures SabiBooks now shows for those old periods may not match what you submitted then. That is the notice’s point: nothing you already filed with FIRS changes — the return you filed stays as you filed it — but the app’s figures follow the correct timing rule from now on, for every period you open.

Exporting Your Return

Tap the export control on the VAT Report to download the period as PDF or CSV. Both carry the same figures and the same “How this return counts VAT” notice as the screen, so the copy you hand to your accountant says exactly what you read here. A nil return cannot be exported — there is nothing to file from it.

Tip

Invoices issued under Tax Invoice mode feed this report automatically: the invoice’s VAT is declared in the period the invoice is dated, whether or not it has been paid.