When the obligation is yours, not your supplier's — transcript

Presentation 1 of 6 in Self-billed e-invoices: reporting what your supplier will not · about 10 minutes · for the whole-system operator — you run the books.

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 run the books at GadgetSphere and some of your suppliers are never going to send you an e-invoice. Somebody still has to report those purchases to LHDN, and for a defined set of them that somebody is you. In about ten minutes you will know what a self-billed e-invoice actually is inside BigLedger, how to sort your supplier list into the two groups, and the three things people expect self-billing to be that it is not.

Step 1 — Say what a self-billed e-invoice is

For some purchases, Malaysian tax rules put the reporting obligation on the buyer rather than the seller — so the e-invoice for something you bought has to be issued by you. That is a self-billed e-invoice. In BigLedger it is not a separate applet and not a separate screen: it is an ordinary purchase document with a flag set on it. Once that flag is on, the document travels the same pipeline your sales e-invoices travel, with the two parties swapped. Your own company’s identity becomes the buyer block, and your supplier’s record becomes the issuer block. Which purchases must be self-billed is LHDN’s rule, not BigLedger’s, so confirm your own cases against the current guideline before you flag anybody.

After this step you can explain the whole idea in two sentences to anybody who asks.

Reference: Incoming Supplier E-Invoices — Step 5: When the supplier will not issue one

Step 2 — Sort your supplier list into two groups

After this step you know roughly how much of GadgetSphere’s purchasing this touches. Your twelve hundred suppliers are mostly authorised distributors and accessory wholesalers, and those will e-invoice you normally once they are inside their own compliance phase. Self-billing is for the rest, and it has a recognisable shape: local agents and individuals who are not required to issue an e-invoice at all, and foreign vendors — the regional distributors and software subscriptions billed from outside Malaysia — who have never heard of MyInvois. In both cases the law puts the reporting obligation on the buyer, which is you. Go down your supplier list once and mark those two groups. That list is the work of this whole course.

Reference: Use Cases — 3. Self-billing a supplier who cannot invoice you

Step 3 — Take the rule from LHDN, not from BigLedger

After this step you will not flag a supplier on a hunch. BigLedger gives you a switch; it does not tell you when to use it, and it will not stop you using it wrongly. Which transactions must be self-billed is set by the current LHDN e-Invoice guideline, and it is worth reading that list against your own supplier groups rather than reasoning from first principles. The cost of getting it wrong runs both ways. Flag a supplier who is issuing their own e-invoices and the same transaction is reported to LHDN twice, once by each of you. Miss one and it is never reported at all, by anybody, and nothing raises an alarm. The one place it shows is the purchase-document matching queue, where an unflagged purchase sits waiting for a supplier e-invoice that is never coming — which is lesson two.

Reference: Incoming Supplier E-Invoices — Step 5: When the supplier will not issue one

Step 4 — Know which record fills which half of the document

After this step you know where to go when a field on a self-billed e-invoice is wrong. Every e-invoice carries two parties. On a sale, your company is the supplier and your customer is the buyer. On a self-billed document those swap, and BigLedger swaps the source records with them. Your own company record on the Organisation applet now fills the buyer half — its tax number, identity type and value, registration number, service tax number, industry code, business-activity description, address and phone. The supplier record fills the issuer half, from its own E-Invoice tab. So a wrong buyer name on a self-billed e-invoice is a company-record problem, and a wrong issuer tax number is a supplier-record problem.

Screen: the To IRB E-Invoice edit form with the Account tab open, showing the supplier identity block on a purchase document rather than the buyer block you see on a sale

Reference: My E-Invoice Admin Applet — Before you can use it

Step 5 — Name the three things self-billing is not

After this step you will stop looking for it in the wrong places. It is not a separate applet: there is no self-billing screen, only a flag on an ordinary purchase document and the same admin applet you already use for sales. It is not a buyer-portal function; the portal is where your own customers ask you for their e-invoices, and it has nothing to do with this. And it is not matching. A self-billed purchase document never appears in the purchase-document matching queue, by design, because you are the one issuing the e-invoice and there is no incoming document to pair it with. An empty matching queue for those suppliers is correct.

Reference: My E-Invoice Admin Applet — 7. Incoming e-invoices and reconciliation

How the steps fit together

    flowchart TD
  s1["Step 1 — Say what a self-billed e-invoice is"]
  s2["Step 2 — Sort your supplier list into two groups"]
  s3["Step 3 — Take the rule from LHDN, not from BigLedger"]
  s4["Step 4 — Know which record fills which half of the document"]
  s5["Step 5 — Name the three things self-billing is not"]
  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.

1. Who decides which of your purchases must be self-billed? BigLedger, from the supplier's country and tax number
LHDN, in its e-Invoice guideline — BigLedger only gives you the switch
Your auditor, once a year at the audit

2. On a self-billed e-invoice, where does the buyer block come from? Your own company record — the same fields that are the supplier block on a sale
The supplier record's E-Invoice tab
Whatever was keyed on the purchase document's Main Details tab

3. A supplier you self-bill never shows up in the purchase-document matching queue. What does that mean? The supplier record is missing its tax number
Nothing is wrong — a self-billed document never enters that queue, because you are issuing the e-invoice
The document was skipped and never reached the pipeline

4. You flag a supplier who is in fact issuing their own e-invoices. What happens? BigLedger refuses the flag once it finds the supplier's TIN at LHDN
The document is diverted to a pool with a warning
The same transaction is reported to LHDN twice, once by each of you

Answer key

LHDN, in its e-Invoice guideline — BigLedger only gives you the switch — Incoming Supplier E-Invoices — Step 5: When the supplier will not issue one
Your own company record — the same fields that are the supplier block on a sale — My E-Invoice Admin Applet — Before you can use it
Nothing is wrong — a self-billed document never enters that queue, because you are issuing the e-invoice — Incoming Supplier E-Invoices — Step 5: When the supplier will not issue one
The same transaction is reported to LHDN twice, once by each of you — Incoming Supplier E-Invoices — Step 5: When the supplier will not issue one

This is a self-check. Your answers are marked in your browser and stay there — nothing is sent anywhere, nothing is recorded, and the marking is readable in the page source, so it is not a credential. Open the answer key at any time.

Next: Which documents can carry one, and how the flag gets set · Back to the series · Play this as a presentation

Last updated on September 17, 2026

When the obligation is yours, not your supplier's Which documents can carry one, and how the flag gets set