Phase 2 readiness checklist: ten points before your compliance date

Six months usually separate ZATCA's notice from the compliance date — ample time if it is organised, painfully short if it is left to the last two weeks. Here is a practical ten-point checklist, in the order that actually works.

Data first (month one)

1. Your VAT registration number — correct and identical across all your systems; no conflicting copies between accounting and the POS.
2. Your national address data — complete, as the invoice fields require.
3. Your business-customer records: their VAT numbers and addresses — validation rules reject a standard invoice whose registered-buyer data is missing.
4. Your item, price and tax tables: every item correctly classified (standard-rated, zero-rated, exempt) — mistakes here become rejected invoices or wrong returns.

System and units (months two and three)

5. An invoicing system that genuinely covers Phase 2: XML generation under the published rules, cryptographic stamping, the counter, the hash chain, and Fatoora integration — ask your vendor about each item by name.
6. An inventory of invoicing units: every branch, POS and system that issues invoices needs its own registration and certificate.
7. Your two paths mapped: which of your invoices are standard (cleared before sharing) and which are simplified (reported within 24 hours)? A mixed customer base needs both paths working.

Testing (months four and five)

8. A full cycle in a test environment: an invoice, a credit note, a debit note — from issue through acceptance, with your real items and data, not synthetic samples.
9. Test failure, not just success: what does your system do when the platform connection drops? Where do invoices queue, and when are they retried? Compliance day is not the moment to find out.

People (month six)

10. Train the people who actually issue invoices: the cashier and the accountant know the difference between the two types, why an issued invoice is never edited, and how to raise a correct credit note.

The checklist shrinks considerably when the system was built for Phase 2 from the ground up: with alFatora, testing starts in a free, unlimited sandbox from day one — before any commitment, and before your notice even arrives.