How to integrate with the Fatoora portal: Phase 2 onboarding steps for a supplier

Phase 2 of e-invoicing is called the integration phase. ZATCA started it on 1 January 2023 and rolls it out in waves. Each wave is a group of taxpayers that ZATCA selects by revenue, and ZATCA says it notifies each group at least six months before its integration date.

Wave 24 covered taxpayers whose VAT-subject revenue was above SAR 375,000 in 2022, 2023 or 2024, with a deadline of 30 June 2026. Wave 25 covers revenue above SAR 187,500 in any of 2022, 2023, 2024 or 2025, and the deadline is 1 February 2027. ZATCA said it will notify the Wave 25 taxpayers directly.

So the first step is not technical. Read the notice you received and check your VAT-subject revenue for those four years. If you are not sure whether you are in a wave, ask ZATCA on 19993 before you buy or change any software. Our Wave 25 article explains the wave rules in more detail.

Integration changes what happens to an invoice after you create it. A tax invoice is the invoice you usually issue to another business or a government entity. Your solution sends it in XML format to the Fatoora platform for clearance. Fatoora validates it, adds a cryptographic stamp and a QR code, and sends it back. Only then do you share it with the buyer, in XML or in PDF/A-3 with the XML inside.

A simplified tax invoice is mostly for consumers. Your own solution stamps it with the cryptographic stamp identifier (CSID) that ZATCA issued, and you report it to Fatoora within 24 hours. You may choose a simplified invoice for a B2B sale only when the taxable value is under SAR 1,000.

Credit and debit notes follow the same path as their invoice. ZATCA also says an issued invoice cannot be edited or deleted. To cancel one, you issue a credit note and then a new invoice.

The onboarding itself is short. ZATCA describes it in the Fatoora Portal User Manual. You log in at fatoora.zatca.gov.sa with your ERAD credentials, meaning your TIN or the email registered with ZATCA, and your password. You choose "onboard new solution unit/device" and enter how many OTP codes you need, one for each solution unit, such as each invoicing server or cash register.

The portal shows the codes and lets you copy or download them. Each code is valid for one hour, so your provider or IT team must enter it in the solution within that hour. If it expires, you generate a new one. Then open "View list of solutions and devices" to confirm the unit is onboarded.

You use the same portal later to renew a cryptographic stamp identifier (CSID) or to revoke a unit you no longer use. Note that the Developer Portal, where the API documentation lives, uses different credentials from the Fatoora portal.

Before you onboard on the live portal, ZATCA offers a Fatoora simulation portal for end-to-end testing. It is a separate environment, so a unit onboarded there must be onboarded again on the live portal. The live portal also shows statistics for the documents you submitted in the past 12 months, split into accepted, accepted with warnings, and rejected, and you can download the error details. Check it every week in the first months.

Plan for failures as well. ZATCA says a rejected invoice must be corrected and submitted again, while a warning should be fixed on the next invoice. If your solution cannot generate invoices because of an incident or a technical error, you must notify ZATCA, notify it again when the problem is fixed, and then resume clearance or reporting. ZATCA has an e-invoicing failure notification service on its website for this.

ENTEK is not an e-invoicing solution and is not connected to Fatoora. It does not onboard your units, clear your invoices or report them to ZATCA, and we do not recommend any provider.

What ENTEK does is narrower. Your verified company profile holds your CR and VAT numbers, certifications, key personnel and official stamp, so buyers on ENTEK see the same tax number that appears on your invoices. For your orders on ENTEK, you can submit invoices and generate stamped commercial documents: quotation, proforma, commercial invoice, packing list, COA, MSDS/TDS and contracts.

These are commercial documents. They are not tax invoices and they do not count as Phase 2 compliance. Keep issuing your tax invoices from the solution you onboard on Fatoora, and contact ZATCA on 19993 for questions about your wave. Use a ZATCA-compliant e-invoicing solution for your tax invoices.