What’s New in ZRA Smart Invoice Sprint 3 – But Still No Fix for Lost Invoice Numbers
What’s New in ZRA Smart Invoice? The Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) continues its digital transformation journey with the rollout of Smart Invoice Sprint 3 or Version V111
Despite some hefty upgrades packed with new features aimed at improving the taxpayer experience this upgrade suffers a huge blow as developers have failed to fix loss of invoice numbering sequence upon computer reset.
Deployed in June 2025, this latest version brings more polish, functionality, and data integrity into the invoicing process. Let’s break down what’s new—and what’s still painfully missing.
What’s New and Improved
- Commercial & Provisional Invoices: You can now issue international trade-compliant commercial invoices and flexible provisional invoices, great for industries with staggered deliveries such as mining.
- Business Name Lookup from TaxOnline: Say goodbye to typo-induced invoice chaos. You can now fetch the official business name directly from ZRA’s TaxOnline.
- Value Credit Notes: Need to fix pricing without touching the item quantity? These are now supported for proper financial adjustments.
- Richer Invoice Details: Invoices can now include the customer’s phone, email, physical address, residence status, and even your banking info. Clean and professional.
- Customer TPIN Validation: No more guessing if a client’s TPIN is legit—validate it straight from the platform.
- Sales & Purchases Reports: A simple but powerful reporting feature to make VAT filing smoother.
- Resubmission of Service Requests: If your Smart Invoice registration request got rejected, you can now reapply without starting from scratch.
- Sandbox Invoice Watermarks: QR scans now show a watermark to distinguish test invoices from real ones—less confusion, fewer compliance issues.
- Corporate Branding Upgrade: ZRA’s branding has been polished throughout the system for a more professional and consistent feel.
But… Still No Fix for Invoice Sequence Headaches
Despite these fantastic enhancements, one nagging issue remains completely untouched: Invoice sequence continuity.
If your system crashes, you reinstall Windows, or simply move to a new computer, your Smart Invoice sequence starts from scratch. The system treats your machine like a stranger. This is a real pain point for SMEs and accountants alike, and it’s surprising that ZRA still hasn’t addressed it. For a system meant to bring integrity and order to tax documentation, not maintaining invoice continuity feels like a major oversight.
Smart Invoice By the Numbers
- Over 60.9 million invoices issued by 35,000+ registered taxpayers
- VAT leads the pack with K915.5 billion worth of invoices and K72.6 billion in output tax
- TOT, ITX, and Rental Tax trail behind in volume but show steady usage growth
What’s Coming Next?
ZRA is working on dashboards to track untransmitted invoices—useful for real-time compliance. They’re also looking into offline solutions to ease the burden of Zambia’s sometimes wobbly internet.