Give your details — 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 the shop’s system has found your purchase and is now asking who you are. In about ten minutes you will know every field it insists on and why, which identification document to choose so that LHDN accepts it, how to have your tax number checked before you commit, the one combination that has no answer at all, and whether any of this is remembered the next time you buy.

Step 1 — Fill the whole form, not the easy half

After this step you will know what “enough” looks like, so you gather it once. The form wants your name as it should appear on a tax document, an identification type and its number, your tax identification number, an e-mail address, a contact number, and an address with line one, a postcode, a city, a country and a state. Sales and service tax registration is the only identity detail you may leave out, and the extra address lines and the second phone number are optional too. None of this is the shop being nosy: LHDN will not accept an e-invoice without a buyer name, tax number, identification and a full address, and an address missing its city or state is never sent at all.

Reference: Storefront E-Invoice Request — Update E-Invoice Profile

Step 2 — Choose the identification document that will pass

Every e-invoice carries the buyer’s tax number together with an identity document type and the number that goes with it. That group causes more rejections than everything else in e-invoicing put together, and the rule is short. Passport for an individual who is not Malaysian. Business registration number for a company, Malaysian or foreign — the passport rule is about people, not about foreignness. National identity number only for a Malaysian individual, and only as twelve digits with no dashes in them. And one habit matters as much as the rule: type the number, never paste it. A number copied out of a browser or a PDF can bring an invisible character with it, and the field will look perfectly right on screen while LHDN rejects it every single time.

Reference: E-Invoice Validation Rules & Troubleshooting — Get the buyer’s identity right — this is where most rejections come from

Step 3 — Know the four choices and the characters they refuse

After this step nothing in the drop-down will puzzle you and nothing you paste will surprise you. The identification type list holds exactly four entries and nothing else can be chosen: passport, national identity card, business registration number, and armed forces identification. The rule in the last step covers the first three, which is nearly everybody. Whichever you pick, the number you type has to be the number on that same document. The form also refuses whitespace outright: a tax number or an identification number with a space anywhere in it, including one that came along invisibly with a paste, is rejected before anything is sent. Phone numbers are the same story with dashes.

Reference: Storefront E-Invoice Request — Update E-Invoice Profile

Step 4 — Have your tax number checked before you commit

After this step the form will let you through, or tell you why not. Beside the tax number there is a Verify control, and pressing it sends your tax number together with the identification type and number to LHDN to be checked there and then. The hint underneath turns green and reads Verified, or red and reads Not valid. Until it is green the button that saves your details stays greyed out, and changing any one of those three values greys it out again. Treat that as a kindness rather than an obstacle. A mismatched pair is the commonest reason an e-invoice is refused, and here you find out before you send anything rather than after the shop has.

Reference: MY E-Invoice Portal Applet — Fields

Step 5 — Recognise the one combination with no answer

After this step you will not spend an afternoon on something this form genuinely cannot do. If you hold a foreign passport and have no Malaysian tax number of your own, you will not get past it at all: the button that saves your details stays greyed out until the check comes back positive, and there is nothing you can type here that will make it. LHDN does publish a stand-in tax number for foreign buyers, but nothing fills it in for you — the shop has to key it onto the document by hand. The stand-in number for local buyers is no help either; it is accepted only alongside a Malaysian identity card number of twelve digits. So this one is a telephone call to the shop, not a form.

Reference: Storefront E-Invoice Request — Update E-Invoice Profile

Step 6 — Know what becomes of what you typed

After this step you will know whether you have to do all this again next time. If you were signed in to an account the shop gave you, they keep your name, identification, tax number, e-mail, phone and address on your account with them, with that address marked as the one to use for e-invoices, so your next request is nearly a single button. If you did this as a guest, none of it is kept as a record of you. Your details travel with that one request and onto that one e-invoice, and your next purchase starts from an empty form. Neither is better; only one of them remembers you.

Reference: Storefront E-Invoice Request — What the identity becomes

How the steps fit together

    flowchart TD
  s1["Step 1 — Fill the whole form, not the easy half"]
  s2["Step 2 — Choose the identification document that will pass"]
  s3["Step 3 — Know the four choices and the characters they refuse"]
  s4["Step 4 — Have your tax number checked before you commit"]
  s5["Step 5 — Recognise the one combination with no answer"]
  s6["Step 6 — Know what becomes of what you typed"]
  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.

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