The sale that is too big for the monthly batch — 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 a corporate customer or a big spender is at your counter and the total has gone past five figures. In about eight minutes you will know why that sale is different, why the till will not stop you getting it wrong, and exactly what to ask for. The whole thing comes down to one habit: on a big sale, get the details before you take the money, because afterwards the customer has left and nobody else can get them.

Step 1 — Recognise the line

After this step you will know the number and the fact that it is not negotiable. A sale of RM 10,000 or more must be reported to the Inland Revenue Board, LHDN, on its own, with the buyer’s real identity on it. It cannot be folded into the monthly consolidation the way a walk-in receipt is. The threshold is inclusive, which catches people: a sale of exactly RM 10,000 is already above the line, not on it. For GadgetSphere that is the difference between a shopper buying a phone case and a corporate customer taking RM 18,000 of equipment on the same afternoon at the same counter.

Reference: E-Invoice Pools & Submission Routing — The RM 10,000 rule

Step 2 — Do not split the sale

After this step you will know what to say if someone suggests the obvious shortcut. Two bills of RM 9,500 look tidier and they are not a workaround. The RM 10,000 line is a reporting rule, not a target to stay under. If anyone asks you to split a sale, it is one sale and it stays one sale; say so, and let them take it up with the office. BigLedger is not easy to talk round either: someone trying to move a sale of that size into the monthly batch later is refused outright, with a message saying a transaction of ten thousand or more cannot be moved. The answer is always the same one: get the buyer’s details.

Reference: Consolidated e-invoices — What it is not

Step 3 — Ask for the details before you take the money

After this step you will stop expecting the till to stop you, because it will not. A bill of RM 10,000 or more finalises perfectly happily with the buyer panel empty. There is a high-value setting, and all it does is choose the submission type for you: on a bill that size it offers Individual only and takes the consolidated options away. It makes no field mandatory and it blocks nothing. So the sale lands in a pool for a named buyer, where it waits for a person, indefinitely, with nothing to age it and nobody warned. The only thing between that and a reported sale is you, while the customer is still in front of you.

Reference: POS General — Applet settings

Step 4 — For a company, the registration number is the field that matters

After this step you will know which single field to fight for when a corporate buyer is vague. On a sale of RM 10,000 or more, if you key the buyer’s identity type as a business registration number and the tax number is blank, BigLedger goes and looks the tax number up in LHDN’s own registry by that registration number, and fills it in when it finds a match. Below that amount it does not look at all, which is why a small sale with a missing tax number simply goes to a pool. So on a big corporate sale, the registration number is the one field that can fetch the rest, which makes it the one to ask for first.

Reference: E-Invoice Validation Rules & Troubleshooting — General TINs — when you don’t have the buyer’s TIN

Step 5 — Handle a foreign buyer, whatever the amount

After this step you will know the second kind of sale that can never go into the monthly batch. A consolidated e-invoice cannot carry a foreign buyer at all — the amount is irrelevant. A tourist buying a camera for RM 800 is as much an exception as a corporate customer spending eighteen thousand. Key the identity type as Passport, and then ask for their tax number, because you need it. BigLedger fills a general one in only for a national identity number, so without a real tax number that sale goes nowhere: it sits in a pool instead. And do not key a passport number into the national identity field to make it look local; a passport number is not twelve digits and LHDN throws the whole document back.

Reference: Consolidated e-invoices — How it behaves in BigLedger

Step 6 — Answer the customer who will not give you the details

After this step you will know what to say, and what not to promise. It happens, and most often with a visitor who wants an e-invoice there and then: no Malaysian tax number, no patience, a queue forming. You do not refuse the sale, and you do not hold everybody up hunting for somebody senior — in plenty of shops there is nobody with the access to help you anyway. Record whatever they will give you, finalise the bill, and tell them plainly that the e-invoice will be issued and how it will reach them. Never promise a validated e-invoice over the counter, because nothing at your till can produce one while they stand there. Then hand the bill number on. What is missing is finance’s to chase, not yours to solve at the till.

Reference: Pools and queues — How it behaves in BigLedger

How the steps fit together

    flowchart TD
  s1["Step 1 — Recognise the line"]
  s2["Step 2 — Do not split the sale"]
  s3["Step 3 — Ask for the details before you take the money"]
  s4["Step 4 — For a company, the registration number is the field that matters"]
  s5["Step 5 — Handle a foreign buyer, whatever the amount"]
  s6["Step 6 — Answer the customer who will not give you the details"]
  s1 --> s2
  s2 --> s3
  s3 --> s4
  s4 --> s5
  s5 --> s6
  

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 the customer comes back · Back to the series · Play this as a presentation