Track it and download it — transcript

Play this as a presentation — one slide per step, with the same narration. Every word of every step is on this page.

This lesson is for you if you have pressed Request and are now wondering whether anything is actually happening. In about nine minutes you will know what your request set going behind the scenes, how to get back to it tomorrow, what the status words mean, how to download the e-invoice once it exists, and how to check in half a minute that the document really is yours.

Step 1 — Know what pressing Request actually starts

After this step you will not sit refreshing the page. What happens next depends on which door you used. From the shop’s web store, nothing waits for a person: your request joins a queue, and behind it their system takes your purchase out of the pile destined for the monthly document, writes your details onto the sale and submits it to LHDN in your name, rebuilding the monthly document without your receipt if it had already been built. Nobody there is told you asked — no inbox, no approval step — so you are watching for a result rather than a reply. A portal the shop signed you into works the same way: the request runs at once, with no approval step, and goes out on the shop’s ordinary submission run. Either way, nobody at the shop needs chasing unless the request fails.

Reference: Storefront E-Invoice Request — Lifecycle and effects

Step 2 — Keep your way back to the request

After this step you will not lose track of your own request. If you were signed in, it is simply there: a list of everything you have asked for, with counters showing how many are still in the queue, how many are validated and how many carry a validation error. If you were a guest, you get one e-mail instead, with the subject line about tracing your e-invoice request status, and a link that takes you to your list. That link is the only way back in, because a guest has no account to sign in to. Do not delete it. If it never arrives, check the address you typed, then telephone the shop.

Reference: Storefront E-Invoice Request — Requested E-Invoices, Cancellation and History

Step 3 — Read the status your request is showing

After this step the words on the screen will mean something. In the queue means LHDN has not answered yet: the shop’s system has not sent it, or LHDN has it and is still deciding, or the shop’s system tried and could not build it. Look again the next morning, not every ten minutes. Validated means LHDN examined your e-invoice and accepted it; it is now a tax record with an identifier and a QR code. A validation error means the opposite and nothing else: LHDN examined it and refused it. Cancelled means an e-invoice existed and has since been withdrawn. Only validated is finished, and only it can be downloaded. Stuck in the queue for a day or two, or showing a validation error? Telephone the shop before the month is out: a refused e-invoice under ten thousand ringgit can be folded into the shop’s monthly document under General Public once the month ends.

Reference: Validation and clearance — How it behaves in BigLedger

Step 4 — Download the e-invoice

After this step you will be holding the document itself. Open the magnifying glass beside your request to see its invoice number, date, amount and status. Once the status is validated, that same panel shows LHDN’s validation QR code and offers an Export button, and pressing it downloads the e-invoice as a PDF named after the shop, the document type, the date and the invoice number. On an iPhone or an Android phone it opens in a new tab instead of downloading, which is your phone’s doing and not a fault. Some shops also put an Export button on the search result itself, but that is a setting on their side, so do not expect it everywhere.

Reference: Storefront E-Invoice Request — The details pop-up

Step 5 — Check in thirty seconds that it is really yours

After this step you will know whether you are finished. Open the PDF and read four things. Your name, spelled the way it should appear on a tax document. Your tax number, digit for digit. Your identification number, with the document type beside it matching what you actually used. And the address, carrying a city and a state, because those are the parts LHDN insists on. If all four are right you are done, and the QR code is LHDN’s own proof of it. If one of them is wrong, remember that LHDN checks structure and identity rather than your shopping: an e-invoice can be perfectly valid and still wrong, which is the last lesson.

Reference: E-Invoice Validation: What BigLedger and LHDN Check — the Buyer’s Identity, the Mandatory Fields and the General TINs — Mandatory fields

How the steps fit together

    flowchart TD
  s1["Step 1 — Know what pressing Request actually starts"]
  s2["Step 2 — Keep your way back to the request"]
  s3["Step 3 — Read the status your request is showing"]
  s4["Step 4 — Download the e-invoice"]
  s5["Step 5 — Check in thirty seconds that it is really yours"]
  s1 --> s2
  s2 --> s3
  s3 --> s4
  s4 --> s5
  

Check yourself

Three to five questions on what you just heard. Every correct answer links to the page that makes it correct, so you can check the source, not just the mark.

Next: When something is wrong · Back to the series · Play this as a presentation