mbulelo smpofu
Chronicle Writer
FISCAL Support Services, a Zimbabwean-based ICT solutions provider, has upscaled its deployment of virtual fiscalisation solutions to maximise the country’s tax revenue collection in line with the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra)’s mandate to ensure fiscal compliance across all relevant business segments of the economy.
Fiscal Support Services have developed virtual fiscal software packages to ensure compliance with the Zimra Public Notice 26 issued on April 5 last year.
The notice mandates businesses and taxpayers to onboard the Fiscalisation Device Management System (FDMS).
According to Zimra, fiscalisation refers to configuring fiscal devices to enable them to record sales for use by Zimra in Value-Added Tax Administration.
Fiscal Support Services technical director, Mr Daniel Chanda, said their portfolio of virtual fiscalisation solutions dubbed FiscalSuite are expected to increase the FDMS onboarding opportunities for large corporates, MMES and SMEs and ensure they are fiscal compliant. Under the Fiscal Suite, clients can expect to be on the FDMS system within 48 hours.
Conventional fiscalisation which Zimra launched in October 2011 required the use of physical electronic signature devices to capture and report all fiscal information to the revenue authorities.
“As a pioneer in the industry, Fiscal Support Services has a significant market share and footprint across the country. With the advancements in the technological landscape, the company continues to roll out more exciting and cost-effective innovations to ensure ease of fiscal compliance for the ever-growing taxpayer client base across Zimbabwe,” said Mr Chanda.
“The new virtual solutions in the FiscalSuite put to rest the challenges associated with the deployment of physical electronic signature devices such high hardware device costs, frequent maintenance requirements, need for spare parts as well as limited use case options due to lack of device mobility.”
Mr Chanda said instead of the taxpayer having to use physical devices for fiscalisation, their virtual solutions make use of the latest software-based fiscalisation models to give the taxpayer a seamless and stress-free integration with the Zimra servers.
“In addition, our virtualised solutions create great convenience for the taxpayers as it allows them to generate fiscal invoices from anywhere, in contrast to the use of physical devices which limit invoice generation to a fixed workspace,” he said.
Mr Chanda said another key point is that their virtual solutions integrate effortlessly with a variety of accounting packages used for invoicing such as Excel, Sage, Palladium, Quickbooks, POS retail systems, Oddo, and custom-designed receipting systems.
He said the new virtual fiscalisation solutions under the FiscalSuite portfolio empower taxpayers and companies to process invoices in milliseconds.
“This is in contrast to the use of physical electronic signature devices which makes the fiscalisation process much longer to complete. All fisacalised invoices, debit notes, or credit notes from the FiscalSuite solution come with easy-to-read QR codes required by Zimra,” said Mr Chanda.
“These QR codes allow the taxpayer to quickly scan the QR code and check the validity of the document generated, thus enhancing accountability and transparency.”
The company’s sales manager, Mr Mpumelelo Ncube, said that Fiscal Support Services is making significant strides in ensuring they grow the country’s number of compliant taxpayers with virtual fiscalisation being the key game changer.
“As a market leader in the fiscalisation space, we believe our virtual solutions offer great value for the taxpayers as the onboarding costs for this solution are affordable. Not only is the onboarding cost a third of traditional fiscalisation devices, the elimination of the physical device now means companies will save money and avoid hefty maintenance costs as the solution is 100 percent software-based,” he said.
Mr Ncube also indicated that the virtual solutions under the FiscalSuite use advanced algorithms to ensure taxpayer data and information are secure and kept confidential.
In addition, the offline mode facilitates revenue maximisation and business continuity in scenarios where internet or server downtimes may occur.
